What led to hotel fire disaster at Turkish ski resort?

The fire that killed at least 76 people at the Grand Kartal hotel in the early hours of Monday is one of the deadliest accidents in Turkish history.

Some survivors have said they did not hear the alarm and experts have told the BBC that they would not have expected so many people to die in a hotel where fire protection systems were working properly.

The 12-story hotel at Turkey’s famous Kartalkaya ski resort receives thousands of visitors every year, so Turkish people understandably want to know how such a horrific accident happened at the start of a two-week holiday.

The interior ministry said the fire started at 03:27 (00:27 GMT) at the restaurant on the fourth floor and firefighters arrived within 45 minutes.

Some survivors have reported smelling smoke for the past hour.

Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said the hotel has a fire certificate “issued by the fire department”.

But this has been denied by the local mayor Tanju Ozcan, who said that the fire department has not given a good report since 2007.

Some survivors say they did not hear the warning, while there have been reports of inadequate fire extinguishers in the hotel.

“My wife smelled fire,” said Atakan Yelkovan, who said he was staying on the third floor of the hotel.

“We went down earlier than the others. The alarm didn’t go off… It took about an hour to an hour and a half for the firemen to come. By this time, the fourth and fifth floors were on fire. People living on the upper floors were screaming.”

Some guests in the upper rooms tried to escape with their blankets and others jumped to their deaths.

Eylem Senturk said the fire alarm didn’t go off until he left the house. Her husband jumped from the balcony of the hotel because of the smoke: “We are very lucky to have survived.”

The BBC has tried to contact the managers of the hotel regarding these issues but so far there has been no response.

Nine people, including the hotel owner, have been arrested as part of the Turkish investigation.

The hotel management has issued a statement showing that they are mourning and are cooperating closely with the authorities.

In such a large building where fire protection systems are fully operational, experts say fire detectors are expected to respond to a fire within seconds and send an alert to the fire control dashboard.

“In a good business, there should be someone leading the team 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Kazim Beceren, president of the Turkish Fire Protection and Education Foundation, told the BBC.

The death rate is also very high, which raises other questions.

“There will always be fire, but we cannot expect that many people will die in this kind of situation,” said Prof. Sevket Ozgur Ataylmaz, head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Yildiz Technical University, who worked on fire safety planning.

“If the building is properly designed for fire, if there are escape routes, and if the smoke is properly removed, it is possible to fight the fire without losing life.”

The interior minister said that there are two people who escaped from the fire, but there are indications that it was not of a good standard.

The head of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) in Bolu, Erol Percin, said that the way the fire spread shows that the fire warning, detection and fire fighting may not have been there.

They said the exterior of the building’s woodwork was supposed to be 100% fireproof, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

The head of the Turkish Fire Protection and Education Foundation told the BBC that the scale of the fire showed that “the fire either does not exist or is not built according to standards”.

There were 238 people staying in the Grand Kartal Hotel at that time.

Kazim Beceren said that the fire protection system was designed with the aim of taking three minutes to leave the floor of any type – and a place with more than 200 people can be removed in 15 to 30 minutes under good conditions.

When the alarm goes off, the person in charge of the fire control dashboard is expected to check the area, according to the head of the Turkish Fire Protection and Education Foundation.

If there is no false alarm or if a second detector sends an alarm, fire alarms are usually activated throughout the building.

In a well-designed system, people are directed by an announcement to the nearest fire exit, with flashing lights for the hearing impaired or audible warnings for those sleeping.

Since fires can spread so quickly, sprinkler systems seem to be the most important to intervene at an early stage.

So is the power source of the back. According to fire safety regulations, emergency exit signs and emergency exit lights must work for one to three hours, even when the lights are out.

The association of engineers and builders in Bolu said in a statement that “a water system is necessary” in these large buildings.

“The pictures on the hotel’s website show that the sprinkler system, which was supposed to be installed in 2008, was not installed. Because of this failure, the fire spread quickly and there were injuries.”

BBC Turkey has not been able to independently confirm the reports about the building’s timber or the hotel’s fire extinguishers.

One of the big questions is whether the hotel’s fire extinguishers were properly inspected.

Bolu Mayor Tanju Ozcan said the Ministry of Tourism is responsible because the hotel crossed the border of his town. Erol Percin agreed.

The mayor said that the last time the Bolu government reported that the hotel was fireproof was in 2007, and there have been no such checks since then.

However, Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said the hotel has a fire certificate “issued by the fire department” and the inspection was up to them.

There have also been calls for the old buildings to be inspected due to changes in the law.

“Places should stop working if they do not follow what is happening today, in crowded places such as hotels, apartments, nursing homes or children’s schools,” says Prof. Atailmaz from Yildiz Technical University.