Merve Kara KaskaBBC TurkiPara tamu mengatakan tidak ada alarm kebakaran yang terdengar dan tidak ada tanda petugas pemadam kebakaran selama periode yang lamaKebakaran yang menewaskan setidaknya 76 orang di Grand Kartal Hotel pada jam-jam awal Senin adalah salah satu bencana paling mematikan dalam sejarah Turki.Beberapa korban selamat mengatakan mereka tidak mendengar alarm dan para ahli telah memberi tahu BBC bahwa mereka tidak akan mengharapkan jumlah kematian yang tinggi di sebuah hotel di mana sistem perlindungan kebakaran berfungsi dengan baik. Apa yang salah?Hotel 12 lantai di resor ski populer Kartalkaya Turki ini dikunjungi oleh puluhan ribu pengunjung setiap tahun, jadi wajar jika orang Turki ingin tahu bagaimana tragedi mengerikan seperti ini bisa terjadi di awal liburan sekolah dua minggu.Menteri Dalam Negeri mengatakan kebakaran dimulai pada pukul 03:27 (00:27 GMT) di area restoran di lantai empat dan petugas pemadam kebakaran tiba dalam waktu 45 menit.Beberapa korban selamat telah menggambarkan mencium asap satu jam sebelumnya.Menteri Kebudayaan dan Pariwisata Mehmet Nuri Ersoy mengatakan hotel tersebut memiliki sertifikat kompetensi kebakaran \”dikeluarkan oleh departemen pemadam kebakaran\”.Namun, hal ini ditantang oleh walikota setempat Tanju Ozcan, yang mengatakan departemen pemadam kebakaran tidak pernah mengeluarkan laporan positif sejak 2007.Beberapa korban selamat mengatakan tidak mendengar alarm, sementara ada klaim adanya kekurangan dalam sistem pemadam kebakaran hotel.\”Istri saya mencium bau kebakaran,\” kata Atakan Yelkovan, yang mengatakan dia menginap di lantai tiga hotel. \”Kami turun lebih awal dari orang lain. Alarm tidak berbunyi… Petugas pemadam kebakaran datang sekitar satu jam hingga satu setengah jam. Sementara itu, lantai empat dan lima terbakar. Orang-orang di lantai atas berteriak.\”Beberapa tamu di lantai lebih tinggi mencoba melarikan diri dengan sprei tempat tidur mereka dan beberapa melompat sampai mati. REX/ShutterstockBeberapa tamu mengikat sprei tempat tidur bersama untuk mencoba melarikan diriEylem Senturk mengatakan alarm kebakaran tidak berbunyi sampai dia keluar dari bangunan. Suaminya harus melompat dari teras hotel karena asap: \”Kami sangat beruntung bisa selamat.\”BBC telah mencoba menghubungi manajer hotel terkait tuduhan ini namun belum menerima respons.Nine people, including the hotel owner, have been detained as part of the Turkish investigation. Hotel managers have issued a statement saying they mourn the losses and are co-operating fully with the authorities.What should have happened?In such a big building where fire systems are fully operational, experts say fire detectors are expected to respond to a fire within seconds and send an alert to a fire control dashboard.\”In a good business, there should be someone in charge of this panel 24 hours a day, seven days a week,\” Kazim Beceren, president of the Turkish Fire Protection and Education Foundation, told the BBC.The death toll is also extremely high, which raises further questions.\”There will always be fires, but we would not expect so many people to die in this type of building,\” said Prof Sevket Ozgur Atayilmaz, head of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Yildiz Technical University, who has worked on fire safety planning.Evrim Aydin /Anadolu\”If the structure is designed correctly for fire, if there are escape routes, and if the smoke is evacuated correctly, it is possible to overcome the fire without loss of life.\”The interior minister said there were two fire escapes, but there are indications they were not of a good standard.Were fire safety measures in place?An official from the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) in Bolu, Erol Percin, said the way the fire had spread suggested that fire warning, detection and extinguishing systems might not have been present.He said the building\’s exterior wooden facade should have been 100% fire-resistant, but that did not appear to be the case.The head of the Turkish Fire Protection and Education Foundation told the BBC that the size of the fire suggested that \”the fire system either does not exist or was not designed in accordance with the standards\”.There were 238 people staying in the Grand Kartal Hotel at the time.Evrim Aydin/AnadoluKazim Beceren said fire safety systems were designed with the aim of taking three minutes to evacuate each floor – and a facility with more than 200 people could be evacuated in 15 to 30 minutes under ideal conditions.When an alarm goes off, the person in charge of the fire control dashboard is expected to check the location, according to the head of the Turkish Fire Protection and Education Foundation.If there is no indication of a false alarm or if a second detector sends a warning, fire alarms are then normally activated throughout the building.In a properly installed system, people are then directed by announcement to the nearest fire exits, with flashing lights for people who are hearing-impaired or audible warnings for those sleeping.As fires can spread very quickly, sprinkler systems are seen as highly important for intervention at an early stage.So too is a back-up power source. According to fire protection regulations, signs pointing to emergency exits and lights showing the paths to these exits have to work for one to three hours, even if there is a power outage.The engineers\’ and architects\’ union in Bolu said in a statement that \”an automatic sprinkler system is mandatory\” in buildings of this size.\”The photos on the hotel\’s website show that the automatic sprinkler system, which was supposed to be installed in 2008, was not installed. Because of this failure, the fire spread rapidly and there were casualties.\”BBC Turkish has not been able to independently confirm the allegations about either the wooden cladding on the building or the hotel\’s fire extinguishing system.Who checked the hotel\’s fire safety?One of the big questions is whether the hotel\’s fire systems were properly inspected.Bolu Mayor Tanju Ozcan said the ministry of tourism was responsible as the hotel was beyond the boundary of his town. Erol Percin agreed.The mayor said that the last time Bolu\’s municipality had given a report stating the hotel was fireproof was in 2007, and there had been no such checks since then.However, Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said the hotel did have a fire competence certificate \”issued by the fire department\” and inspections were down to them.There have also been calls for relatively old structures to come under scrutiny because of changing legislation.\”Places should stop operating if they do not comply with current standards, in crowded places such as hotels, residences, nursing homes or kindergartens,\” says Prof Atayilmaz of Yildiz Technical University.\”
