Turkey detains 11 over ski resort hotel fire that killed 79 By Reuters

ANKARA, Reuters – Turkey has arrested 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.

Among those arrested are the deputy mayor of northwestern Bolu province, the head of the municipality’s fire department, the owner and manager of the hotel, Tunc said in X.

Several funerals were held Wednesday for the victims of Tuesday’s fire, which forced panicked hotel guests to jump from windows in the middle of the night.

“Our hearts and souls ache,” President Tayyip Erdogan said at the funeral of eight victims from the same family in the western Turkish city of Bolu.

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

The government informed that the bodies of 45 victims have been handed over to their families, and forensic DNA tests are being conducted to identify the others.

On Tuesday, the Minister of Internal Affairs announced that 76 people died in the fire, but the Bolu Prosecutor’s Office updated the death toll to 79 after forensic DNA tests on Wednesday evening.

The fire broke out in the Grand Kartal Hotel of the Kartalkaya ski resort, a 12-story hotel with 238 guests. It was gutted after the fire broke out on the restaurant floor around 03:30 am (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 to cooperate fully with the investigation and said it was “deeply saddened by the loss”.

A family’s coffins are lined up outside the central Ahmed Hamdi Aksek Mosque during a funeral in Ankara.

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

According to local media, at least 20 of the victims of the fire are children.

Erdogan declared a national day of mourning on Wednesday after the tragedy at the height of the winter tourist season, when scores of families traveled from Istanbul and Ankara to ski in the Bolu Mountains.