“The death toll in the hotel fire has risen to sixty-six. 51 people were injured, including one seriously,” said the minister who visited the site, confirming that the fire “was extinguished”. The disaster broke out at 3:30 a.m., Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on X, while the toll continued to rise.
The Kartalkaya station, located 170 km from Ankara, is backed by a cliff, which complicated the intervention of the firefighters. Nearly 270 firefighters and rescuers were mobilized to put out the fire which broke out on the upper floors, for a reason still unknown, the minister said. It then quickly spread to the rest of the building due to the exterior wooden cladding, reported Turkish media whose images showed large flames escaping from upper windows and the roof, as well as plumes of black smoke.
More than 230 guests were in the hotel during the winter holidays in Turkey, said the private television channel NTV, which claimed that three people died by jumping out of the windows.
No alarm or emergency staircase
Employees of the hotel, the Grand Kartal, helped evacuate customers, but witnesses and media on site denounce the absence of an alarm and smoke detector.
-“No alarm went off, no smoke detector or emergency exit even though there was smoke up to the tenth floor,” a crying fifty-year-old, who had been with his family since Sunday, denounced on television in the establishment.
“People were calling for help, asking for blankets so they could get out through the windows,” testified Baris Salgur, an employee at a nearby hotel. “We brought them what we found, ropes, pillows, and even a sofa… When the flames approached them, some threw themselves into the void.”
