Turkiye was preparing to bury its dead on Wednesday a day after a huge fire killed 76 people at a ski resort hotel, as questions grew over safety measures at the luxury establishment.<\/p>\n
Nine people have been detained, including the owner of the hotel, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.<\/p>\n
As the nation observed a day of mourning, dozens of families were preparing to bury their loved ones who died as the blaze ripped through the 12-storey hotel.<\/p>\n
But alongside the grief, there was anger, with many newspapers publishing allegations of negligence at the mountaintop hotel in Kartalkaya, which lies about two hours northwest of Ankara.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not the fire but the negligence which was responsible for so many deaths,\u201d said the pro-government Hurriyet newspaper.<\/p>\n
The fire, which began in the dead of night, struck at peak season for the Grand Kartal Hotel, which had 238 guests staying at the start of a two-week winter break.<\/p>\n
The hotel expressed deep sorrow in a statement on Wednesday and pledged full cooperation with the investigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are cooperating with authorities to shed light on all aspects of this incident,\u201d the statement said. \u201cWe are deeply saddened by the losses and want you to know that we share this pain with all our hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 30 people remained in hospital on Wednesday, one of whom was in intensive care, officials said.<\/p>\n
On a freezing foggy morning, with flags flying at half-mast, rescuers resumed their search of the charred and blackened structure on Wednesday, where Turkish media said entire families had died.<\/p>\n
Among those who were to be buried on Wednesday was a neurologist, his wife and their three children, including twin boys.<\/p>\n
\u2018Profoundly disturbing\u2019
\nThe blaze broke out around 3:30 am (5:30am PKT), sending huge clouds of smoke into the night air and sparking panic among the guests, many of whom tried to climb out of the windows, using bedsheets as ropes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw one kid hanging from the hotel window calling for help,\u201d said Islam, who works at a nearby hotel and did not give his surname.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was profoundly disturbed. I still cannot forget the image,\u201d he told AFP, saying he knew some of the hotel staff who died.<\/p>\n
By Tuesday night, investigators had identified 52 of the dead and returned 45 bodies to their families for burial, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.<\/p>\n
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was expected to attend the funeral of seven family members of a local official from his ruling AKP in the nearby town of Bolu.<\/p>\n
Yerlikaya said nine people, including the owner, had been arrested in connection with the blaze, with investigators looking into the cause of the fire, possible negligence and who was responsible.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Turkish media on Tuesday, several guests said that no fire alarms nor smoke alarms had sounded and that there were no fire escapes.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo fire alarm went off\u2026 and there was no fire escape,\u201d Atakan Yelkovan told IHA news agency, saying it had taken \u201cbetween an hour and an hour-and-a-half\u201d for the firefighters to arrive.<\/p>\n
But Tourism Minister Nuri Ersoy said the hotel had two fire escapes and had passed inspections \u201cin 2021 and 2024\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo issues related to fire safety had been flagged by the fire department,\u201d he said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Turkiye was preparing to bury its dead on Wednesday a day after a huge fire killed 76 people at a ski resort hotel, as questions grew over safety measures at the luxury establishment. Nine people have been detained, including the owner of the hotel, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said. As the nation observed a day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4961,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4960"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4962,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4960\/revisions\/4962"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}