Turkey declares day of mourning after ski hotel fire kills 76

Patrick Sykes, Bloomberg News on Jan 21, 2025

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Turkey declared a national day of mourning after a fire at a hotel in a popular ski resort killed 76 people.

At least 51 people were injured in the blaze, which broke out around 3:30 a.m. on a restaurant floor of the 12-story Grand Kartal hotel in the resort of Kartalkaya in northern Turkey. It quickly engulfed the rest of the building, which had 234 people inside, state-run Anadolu Agency reported, citing the provincial governor.

It took around 10 hours to control the fire, AA added. The hotel’s position at the top of a steep slope made it more difficult to extinguish, the agency reported.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said nine people have been detained in connection with the fire. The hotel owner is among them, Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said earlier on X. Authorities are investigating the cause of the blaze.

January is peak ski season in Turkey and Kartalkaya, located between Istanbul and the capital Ankara, is one of the country’s most popular resorts. Hotels are particularly full at this time of year due to school holidays.

At least two of the victims died after jumping from the building in panic, Anadolu reported. Others were seen tying sheets together and hanging them from the windows to escape.

Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said the hotel had a fire safety certificate issued by the fire brigade and that the government had received no reports of compliance issues.

“It is evident even from the number of casualties that fire safety measures were not adequately taken in the facility,”the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects said in a statement.

“People on the upper floors were screaming,” Atakan Yelkovan, a guest at the hotel, told the IHA news agency. He added that he didn’t hear an alarm and said it took around an hour for fire fighters to arrive.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cut short a speech at a party congress to oversee the response. He pledged the incident would be thoroughly investigated and those responsible would be held accountable.

—With assistance from Ugur Yilmaz.