The first indication that the crisis has caused their loved ones came at 5:30 in the morning in a message to the family’s WhatsApp group.
A brother and a sister, hang in there a ski hotel in Turkey that caught firehave asked for help.
“Save us,” they wrote, their uncle, Ozgur Turkmen, said in a telephone interview. “We cannot reach our parents. There is no fire station. “
Within hours, the siblings and their parents were dead.
They were among at least 79 people killed on Tuesday when a predawn blaze Break out in the Grand Kartal Hotel at a ski resort 180 kilometers east of Istanbul.
As the fire burned through the 12-story building surrounded by snow-capped peaks, visitors who had come during the Turkish winter vacation for ski vacations and workers there found themselves flooded by heavy smoke and struggled to escape.
Many survivors said they did not hear the fire alarm and could not find the fire. A Turkish engineering association said in a statement that photos taken from 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 should be a happy winter season has caused grief and anger among survivors and relatives, some of whom have began to call for accountability for the authorities who do not ensure that the building is safe.
Mr. Turkmen said “I was angry, but now I have stopped it. “I will first do my pain and then seek justice.”
Turkey’s justice minister said on Tuesday that prosecutors were investigating the fire, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that anyone who was negligent in causing the fire would be punished. be punished.
On Wednesday, attending a funeral near the resort for extended families who lost 14 members in the fire, Mr. Erdogan has struck a chord.
“We are hurt. Our hearts are burned,” he said. “I want to be patient for the family and for our country.”
The hotel is within walking distance to the slopes and offers good facilities for pampering the middle class family vacation. Some return with their children year after year.
It has hot stones and deep tissue and has a gym and swimming pool. Its cozy, wood-paneled bar and restaurant have nooks for curling up near the fireplace.
Signs of firefighters – posted in obituaries and social media by colleagues, relatives, schools they attended and organizations they belonged to – teach mostly professionals, many with their children or other family members.
They include: The Principal of the Business School and his daughter. A 10-year-old competitive swimmer and his mother. Sixth and ninth grade siblings and their mother; father is alive. The brother who is the president of the electricity company, and a son. A dentist, her husband and their two children. Two chefs work in the hotel.
Among the mourners at the funeral Mr. Erdogan was joined by Zehra Gultekin, who works in sales at Turkish Airlines. She died in the fire along with her husband, their four children and nine other relatives.
Mr. Turkmen, whose brother and nephew sent messages to relatives for help, said they were on vacation with their father, Nedim, a journalist and journalist, and their mother, Ayse, workplace safety specialist.
The family loves the lodge and has returned to it every winter for more than a decade, he said.
The daughter, Ala Dora, 18, is in her high school year and is planning to study English or social sciences in Britain.
His brother, Yuce Ata, 22, graduated in business in London and returned to Turkey to start a business.
He skis. He snowboarded.
When other relatives saw the brothers’ words, Mr. Turkmen said, they called him and he drove to the hotel. He then received his relatives’ bodies, and found that they had tried to escape when they died.
“The key card was in my brother’s pocket, and he got the cash,” said Mr. “My sister got dressed.”
Deniz Bilici Gocmen, who is Nedim’s editor of Sozcu newspaper, said in a telephone interview that he is tired of the destruction in Turkey that causes what should be avoided to avoid death .
“As a citizen, I go to bed every night thinking about how I will wake up every morning,” he said, remembering. recent earthquake and a dead coal mine explosion.
“The grave and the loss are so heavy,” he said.