Turkiye detains 11 over ski resort hotel fire that killed 79

A Turkish flag flag flies at half staff outside a hotel where a fire broke out at the Kartalkaya ski resort in Bolu province, northwest Turkey, on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) (AP)

ANKARA - Turkiye has detained 11 people as part of an investigation into a fire that killed 79 people and injured dozens at a ski resort in the Bolu mountains, Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said on Wednesday.

A deputy mayor of the northwestern Bolu province, the head of the municipality’s fire department, the owner and the manager of the hotel were among those detained, Tunc said on X.

Several funerals were held on Wednesday for the victims of Tuesday’s blaze, including numerous children. The fire forced panicked hotel guests to jump from windows in the middle of the night.

“Our hearts and souls are hurting,” President Tayyip Erdogan said at a funeral for eight victims from the same family in Bolu in western Turkiye.

“I pray for patience for the entire family and our nation.”

The bodies of 45 victims were handed over to their families, and forensic DNA tests were being conducted to identify the others, the government said.

Interior Minister on Tuesday had announced that 76 people had been killed in the fire, but the Bolu prosecutor’s office updated the death toll to 79 on Wednesday evening following forensic DNA tests.

The fire occurred at the Grand Kartal Hotel in the Kartalkaya ski resort, a 12-story hotel which had 238 registered guests. It was consumed by flames after the blaze started on the restaurant floor around 3:30 a.m. (0030 GMT).

Some survivors said they heard no fire alarms during the incident and guests said they had to navigate smoke-filled corridors in complete darkness.

The hotel pledged full cooperation with the investigation and said it was “deeply saddened by the losses.”

At one funeral in Ankara, the coffins of a family were lined up at the central Ahmet Hamdi Akseki mosque.

The parents, a doctor and teacher, had gone to Kartalkaya with their three children to ski during a school break, according to a Reuters witness at the funeral.

At least 20 of the fire victims were children, according to local media reports.

Erdogan declared Wednesday a day of national mourning following the tragedy, which occurred during the peak of the winter tourism season, with many families from Istanbul and Ankara traveling to the Bolu mountains to ski.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay, Mert Ozkan and Huseyin Hayatsever; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Ros Russell)