Turkey began burying its dead on Wednesday, the day after a fire which killed at least 76 people in the middle of the night in a luxury hotel in the ski resort of Kartalkaya, in the center of the country.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan showed his emotion at the funeral of eight family members of a former member of his party, the AKP, in Bolu, the provincial capital.
The head of state was photographed drying his eyes with a white handkerchief, his face scarred, his head lowered to the ground.
At the same time, while around twenty people remained hospitalized in Bolu, 35 km from Kartalkaya, the Turkish press continued to list the negligence which, according to it, led to this very heavy toll, including the absence of fire alarm.
“There is no excuse for such deaths in 2025,” said late Tuesday Özgür Özel, the leader of the CHP, the main Turkish opposition party, in front of the imposing hotel with its blackened facade where the search continued on Wednesday. to find possible victims, in the middle of a day of national mourning.
During this school holiday period in Turkey, entire families who were staying in this luxury establishment, located two hours from Ankara and less than four from Istanbul, were decimated.
“Flames everywhere”
“When I arrived, there were flames everywhere, we could hear screams (…) I saw a person throwing themselves out of the window,” Cevdet Can, head of a ski school in the town, told AFP. station, saying he was very “affected” by the death of a significant number of children.
“I lost five of my students,” a ski instructor, Necmi Kepcetutan, himself a survivor of the flames, told AFP.
Other survivors denounced on Tuesday the absence of a fire alarm and fire doors in the Grand Kartal hotel.
| © DHA (Demiroren News Agency)/AFP |
Nine people, including the owner of the establishment, its general manager and a hotel electrician were arrested as part of the investigation launched by the Ministry of Justice, which assigned six prosecutors to it.
The hotel management presented its condolences and expressed “its sorrow” in a press release published overnight, ensuring “to cooperate with the authorities to shed light on this accident”.
-This luxury establishment (several hundred euros per night) was practically full during these winter school holidays in Türkiye, with 238 registered customers.
“Negligence”
According to the Ministry of Tourism, the hotel had been “verified” by the firefighters in 2021 and 2024. But the ministry and the opposition municipality of Bolu pass the responsibility for certifications of compliance with safety standards to each other.
The state Anadolu agency published on Wednesday a document dated January 2, issued by the municipality of Bolu, attesting to the conformity of a new 70m2 “café-restaurant” set up on the 4th floor of the hotel, from where the fire apparently started according to the Turkish press.
Authorities said the fire broke out shortly before 3:30 a.m. (0030 GMT) on Tuesday, and firefighters arrived on the scene within 45 minutes. But witnesses and survivors say the fire had started at least an hour earlier.
“It was not the fire but the negligence that caused the death” of the vacationers, writes the major pro-government daily Hürriyet.
The Minister of Tourism denied the absence of emergency staircases, mentioned by some survivors, affirming that the hotel had two.
| © AFP Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya (C) speaks to the media outside the stricken Grand Kartal hotel on Wednesday evening in the ski resort of Kartalkaya (central Turkey) |
The twelve-story building, with panoramic views of the mountains, is located near a steep slope, which complicated the intervention of firefighters.
According to the Turkish press, the hotel’s wooden cladding also made it easier for the flames to spread to the rest of the building.
