A deadly hotel fire in a Turkish ski resort sparks sadness and anger

The first indication that tragedy had struck their loved ones came at around 5:30 a.m. in urgent messages to the family’s WhatsApp group.

Brother and sister, trapped inside A ski resort in Türkiye caught fireThey were asking for help.

“Save us,” they wrote, their uncle, Ozgur Turkmen, said in a phone interview. “We cannot reach our parents. There are no fire brigades.”

Within hours, the siblings and their parents were dead.

They were among at least 79 people killed on Tuesday when Dawn fire The fire broke out at the Grand Kartal Hotel in a ski resort 180 miles east of Istanbul.

As the flames engulfed the 12-storey building surrounded by snow-capped peaks, guests who had come during Turkey’s winter holiday for ski holidays and workers staying there found themselves engulfed in thick smoke and struggling to escape.

Many survivors said they did not hear any fire alarms and were unable to find fire exits. The Turkish Engineers Union said in a statement that photos from inside the hotel before the fire showed no signs of the sprinkler system that was supposed to have been installed years ago.

The sudden death of so many people during what was supposed to be a pleasant winter excursion has sparked grief and anger among survivors and their relatives, some of whom have begun demanding accountability from officials who failed to ensure the safety of the building.

“I am angry, but I am suppressing it now,” Turkman said. “I will live my pain first and then seek justice.”

Turkey’s Justice Minister said on Tuesday that public prosecutors were investigating the fire, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that anyone whose negligence led to the fire would be punished.

On Wednesday, while attending a funeral near the resort for a large family who lost 14 members in the fire, Erdogan spoke in a somber tone.

We were hurt. “Our hearts are burned,” he said. “I wish patience to our family and our nation.”

The hotel was within walking distance of the slopes and offered amenities intended to pamper the upper-middle-class families who vacationed there. Some return with their children year after year.

It offers hot stone and deep tissue massages, a games room and an indoor pool. The cozy, wood-paneled bar and restaurant has wraparound nooks near the fireplaces.

The identities of those killed in the fire — given in somber statements and social media posts by colleagues, relatives, the schools they attended and the clubs they belonged to — pointed mostly to wealthy professionals, many of them alongside their children or other family members.

Among them were: the dean of the College of Business Administration and his daughter. A 10-year-old competitive swimmer and her mother. Siblings in sixth and ninth grade and their mother; Father survived. The brothers were managers in an energy company, and each had one son. The orthodontist, her husband and their two children. Two chefs who work at the hotel.

Among those mourned at the funeral attended by Erdogan was Zehra Gültekin, who worked in sales at Turkish Airlines. She died in the fire along with her husband, their four children, and nine other relatives.

Turkmen, whose niece and nephew sent letters to relatives asking for help, said they were on vacation with their father, Nedim, an accountant and newspaper columnist, and their mother, Ayşe, a workplace safety expert.

He said the family loved the hotel and returned every winter for more than a decade.

The daughter, Alaa Doura, 18 years old, was in her final year of secondary school and intended to study English or social sciences in Britain.

Her brother, Yossi Ata, 22, had earned a university degree in economics in London and returned to Türkiye to start a business.

I skated. He skated on ice.

Mr. Turkman said that when other relatives saw the siblings’ messages, they called him and he drove to the hotel. He later received the bodies of his relatives, and it appeared that they were trying to escape when they died.

Turkmen said: “The key card was in my brother’s pocket, and he was taking the money.” “My sister-in-law was getting dressed.”

Deniz Bilici Gokmen, who was Nedim’s editor at Sozcu newspaper, said in a phone interview that she was tired of disasters in Türkiye that caused deaths that should have been avoided.

“As a citizen, I go to bed every night thinking about what I will wake up to every morning,” she said. Recent earthquakes And a A deadly coal mine explosion.

“Such huge, devastating losses,” she said.