A deadly fire at a Turkish Ski Resort has sparked grief and anger

The first indication that her loved one was in danger came at 5:30 am in an urgent message on the family’s WhatsApp group.

A brother and sister trapped in a ski resort in Turkey that caught fire have pleaded for help.

“Save us,” they wrote, their uncle, Ozgur Turkmen, said in a phone interview. “We cannot reach our parents. There are no firefighters.”

Within hours, the siblings and their parents were dead.

They were among at least 76 people killed on Tuesday when a pre-dawn fire broke out at the Grand Kartal Hotel in the ski resort 180 miles east of Istanbul.

As the blaze tore through the 12-story hotel surrounded by snow-capped peaks, it was witnessed by guests arriving during the winter holidays in Turkey for a ski holiday and employees staying there, drowned in thick smoke and struggling to escape.

Many survivors said they did not hear a fire alarm and did not see any fire escaping. The Turkish engineering union said in a statement that pictures 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 so many people during what was supposed to be a joyous winter getaway has sparked grief and anger among survivors and their relatives, with some demanding action against those responsible for failing to ensure the security of the building.

“I am angry, but now I am under pressure,” said Mr. Turkmen. “I will live my pain first, and then I will seek justice.”

Turkey’s justice minister said on Tuesday that prosecutors were investigating the fire, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said anyone involved in the fire would be punished.

On Wednesday, attending a funeral near a funeral home for a family that lost 14 people in the fire, Mr Erdogan struck a somber tone.

“We were hurt. Our hearts are burning,” he said. “I wish patience for the family and our country.”

The hotel was not far from the slopes and provided amenities designed to ease the upper-middle-class families who vacationed there. Some returned with their children every year.

It offered hot stone and deep tissue massages and had a game room and indoor swimming pool. The beautiful wood-paneled bar and restaurant had a fireplace.

The identities of those who died in the fire — reported in grief statements and social media posts by colleagues, relatives, schools and clubs — identified most of the wealthy professionals, most with their children or families.

Among them: A business school dean and his daughter. A 10-year-old competitive swimmer and her mother. Siblings in sixth and ninth grade and their mother; the father is alive. A brother who was a manager in an energy company, and a son each. Orthodontist, his wife and two children. Two chefs worked at the hotel.

Among the mourners at Mr Erdogan’s funeral was Zehra Gultekin, who worked in sales at Turkish Airlines. He died suddenly along with his wife, four children and nine other relatives.

Mr Turkmen, a cousin of his cousin for help, said he was on holiday with his father, Nedim, an accountant and journalist, and his mother, Ayse, -knowledge of workplace safety.

The family loved the lodge and returned every winter for more than a decade, he said.

Ala’s daughter Dora, 18, is in her final year of high school and plans to study English or social sciences in Britain.

Her brother, Yuce Ata, 22, earned an economics degree in London and returned to Turkey to start a business.

He went skiing. He was snowboarding.

When other relatives saw the siblings’ messages, Mr. Turkmen said, they called him and drove to the hotel. He later finds the corpses of his relatives, and it seems that they are about to run away when they die.

“The key card was in my brother’s pocket, and he took money,” said Mr. Turkmen. “My sister-in-law was wearing her clothes.”

Deniz Bilici Gocmen, who was the editor of Nedim in the Sozcu newspaper, said in a telephone interview that he was tired of the tragedy in Turkey where death was inevitable.

“As a citizen, I go to bed every night thinking about what I will wake up to every morning,” he said, recalling recent earthquakes and deadly coal explosions.

“It’s such a huge and massive loss,” he said.