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Deadly Hotel Fire at Turkish Ski Resort Stirs Grief and Anger

The first indication that tragedy had befallen their loved ones came around 5:30 in the morning through urgent messages on the family’s WhatsApp group.

A brother and sister, trapped in a burning Turkish ski lodge, were pleading for help.

“Save us,” wrote their uncle, Ozgur Turkmen, in a telephone conversation. “We cannot reach our parents. There are no firemen.”

A few hours later, the siblings and their parents died.

They were among at least 76 people who died on Tuesday when a pre-dawn blaze broke out at the Grand Kartal Hotel at the ski resort 180 kilometers east of Istanbul.

As the fire tore through the 12-story lodge surrounded by snow-capped peaks, guests who had come on winter break in Turkey for a snow tour and workers who lived there found themselves engulfed in smoke and struggling to escape.

Many survivors said they did not hear fire alarms and were unable to find a fire escape. The Union of Turkish Engineers said in a statement that photos taken inside the hotel before the fire showed no signs of a sprinkler system, which should have been installed years ago.

The sudden death of many people during what was supposed to be a fun winter trip has caused grief and anger among survivors and relatives, some of whom have started crying foul over officials who failed to ensure the building was safe.

“I’m angry, but I’m suppressing it now,” said Mr. Turkmen. “I will first live my pain and then look for justice.”

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

On Wednesday, attending a funeral near the resort of a family that lost 14 members in the fire, Mr. Erdogan was disappointed.

“We are injured. Our hearts were burning,” he said. “I wish patience for my family and our nation.”

The hotel was within walking distance to the slopes and offered amenities aimed at pampering high-end families visiting there. Some returned with children year after year.

It offered hot-stone and deep-tissue massages and had a game room and indoor swimming pool. A cozy, wood-paneled dining room had seating near the fireplace.

Details of those who died in the fire – reported in sad statements and on social media by colleagues, relatives, schools they attended and clubs they belonged to – show rich professionals, many with their children or other family members.

They included: A business school dean and his daughter. A 10-year-old competitive swimmer and her mother. Sixth and ninth grade siblings and their mother; my father survived. Brothers who were managers in an energy company, with one son each. A dentist, her husband and their two children. Two chefs working at the hotel.

Among the mourners at the funeral that Mr. Erdogan attended was Zehra Gultekin, who worked in sales at Turkish Airlines. She died in the fire along with her husband, their four children and nine other relatives.

Mr. Turkmen, whose nephew had sent messages to their relatives for help, said they had gone on holiday with their father, Nedim, an accountant and journalist, and their mother, Ayse, an occupational safety specialist.

The family loved the hotel and had returned to it every winter for more than a decade, he said.

The daughter, Ala Dora, 18, was in her final year of high school and intended to study English or social science in Britain.

His brother, Yuce Ata, 22, had graduated in economics from London and returned to Turkey to start a commercial business.

He skied. He climbed into the snow.

When other relatives saw the messages of these brothers, Mr. Turkmen said, they called him and he went to the hotel. Later he found the bodies of his relatives, it seemed that they were trying to escape when they died.

“The key card was in my brother’s pocket, and he took the cash,” said Mr. Turkmen. “My brother was wearing his clothes.”

Deniz Bilici Gocmen, former editor of Nedim in Sozcu newspaper, said in a telephone interview that he is tired of tragedies in Turkey that cause deaths that could have been avoided.

“As a citizen, I go to bed every night thinking about what I will wake up to every morning,” he recalled of the recent earthquake and dangerous coal mine explosion.

“It’s such a big loss,” he said.


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