from the big one that broke out in the Grand Kartal hotel of the Kartalkaya ski resort, in the early hours of Tuesday. In the meantime, apart from , the deputy mayor of Bolos and the deputy director of the local Fire Department were handcuffed today. As part of the investigation launched by the Ministry of Justice, which assigned six prosecutors to the case, the hotel’s owner, general manager and chief electrician have also been arrested.
While about 20 people continue to be hospitalized, Turkish media do not stop reporting heaps of negligence, which led, according to complaints, to this heaviest blood toll, such as the absence of a fire alarm in the hotel.
“There is no justification for such deaths in 2025,” Ozgur Özel, leader of the main opposition Republican Party (CHP), said late last night, speaking outside the brutalized hotel, his face blackened by the fire. Searches for other possible victims continued today, amid national mourning declared in the country.
The hotel, whose prices were among the highest of any ski resort in the country, welcomed an affluent clientele: business executives, businessmen and famous doctors. In the heart of the winter holidays, most were there with their children and families.
Sözcü newspaper columnist Nedim Turkmen, along with his wife and two children, aged 18 and 22, are among the victims.
“We have no news of my family in room 9013 (…) We are trapped in the fire and we need urgent help,” Ala Dora wrote on her Instagram account before she died, Turkish media reported.
Turkey today began to bury its dead, amid a climate of mourning, pain and anger over alleged negligence.
President Tayyip Erdogan attended the funeral of eight family members of a former lawmaker of the ruling Justice and Development Party in Bolu, 35 kilometers from Kartalkaya: his daughter Zehra Sena Gultekin and at least seven other members of her family perished in the flames, among them her husband, her four children, her son-in-law and her daughter-in-law. Photos show Erdogan wiping tears from his eyes with a white handkerchief, his eyes somber and his head bowed.
The dean of the private Özyegin University, Atakan Yalcin and his daughter died, as well as the famous neurologist Ahmet Cetiz, his wife and their three children.
Many children, their number is still unknown, but estimated at around 20, lost their lives during the family vacation, such as the young 10-year-old swimmer of Fenerbahce Istanbul, Vedia Nil Apak, who died with her mother, or the cousins Kemal and Atlas Toksan, 8 and 5, who died with their father.
Fenerbahce football club announced the death of the wife and daughter of the president of the local fan club.
Galatasaray confirmed the death of a former member of the rowing team, his wife and daughter.
So far, about 20 victims have not been identified.
The testimonies are shocking
“When I arrived, there were flames everywhere, we could hear screams (…) I saw a man jumping from a window,” Chevdet Chan, the head of a ski school in the town, told AFP, shaken by the death of so many children.
“I lost five of my students,” ski instructor Nejmi Kepjetutan, who survived the fire, told AFP.
Other survivors complained about the absence of fire alarms and fire doors at Grand Kartal.
The management of the hotel expressed its condolences and its “regret” assuring that it is “cooperating with the authorities to shed ample light on this accident”.
The luxury accommodation (where a night costs several hundreds of euros) was almost full of customers during this winter school holiday in Turkey, with 238 recorded guests.
According to the tourism ministry, the hotel was “inspected” by firefighters in 2021 and 2024, but several Turkish media reported today that the last inspection was in 2007.
The ministry and the municipality of Bolos, whose leadership comes from the opposition, throw the ball of responsibility from one side to the other for the certifications of compliance with safety standards.
The Turkish news agency Anadolu published today a document dated January 2 and issued by the municipality, which certifies the suitability for the operation of a new 70 sq m “cafe-restaurant”. which took place on the 4th floor of the hotel, where the fire started, according to the Turkish press.
Authorities said the fire broke out shortly before 3:30 a.m. Tuesday and firefighters were on the scene within 45 minutes. However, eyewitnesses and survivors say the fire started earlier.
“It was not the fire, but negligence that caused the death” of people vacationing there, writes the pro-government newspaper Hürriyet.
The tourism minister denied that there were no emergency exits, as claimed by some survivors, asserting that the hotel had two such exits.
The 12-story building, with its panoramic view of the mountains, is located near a steep slope, which made it difficult for the fire brigade to intervene.
According to the Turkish press, the wooden cladding of the hotel facilitated the spread of the fire to the rest of the building.
