A fire broke out over the weekend in a 26-storey residential tower block in the Çankaya district of the Turkish capital Ankara, leaving at least three people dead – including a three-and-a-half-month-old baby– and 39 injured, including seven firefighters, from smoke inhalation. Meanwhile, authorities have launched an investigation and arrested the building’s contractor after residents complained that the fire alarm system was not working.
According to Turkish daily Hürriyet, the fire broke out at around 10 pm on Saturday night in the Alacaatlı neighbourhood in the west of the city, on the fourth floor of a building belonging to the Yaşamkent Valero residential complex. The fire, which was apparently caused by an electrical fault, quickly spread through the building, and despite the rapid intervention of the emergency services, a total of three people lost their lives: 33-year-old Hüsniye Çelik Şahin, her three-and-a-half-month-old son Aras, and 63-year-old security guard Muharrem Çetinkaya. Other 39 people suffered smoke inhalation poisoning and were taken to nearby hospitals by ambulance, including 7 firefighters.
“I live on the 11th floor. I was outside, and I didn’t hear any alarm. There were people shouting and calling for help. There were people who were badly affected, not by the fire but by the smoke. Now (the building) is sealed off, so I don’t know when we will be able to get back in. People were shouting for help, we all did what we could, calling everybody one by one. Unfortunately there were people we couldn’t warn,” said Serenay Yurdakul, one of the residents of the torched tower.
Other residents of the building have confirmed that the alarm system in the block was not working; just the day before, residents of the adjacent block had apparently checked the functioning of a new fire alarm they had installed; but none of this had been done in the building where the tragedy occurred. Following this and other testimonies, the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation and ordered the arrest of the building’s contractor, who was eventually detained in the western province of Uşak.
The preliminary investigation has established that the fire started because the electrical wiring in the hollow section that runs through the building did not comply with regulations; in addition, the doors in this section were constructed of wood, which also contravenes safety and building regulations, so the hollow section acted as a ‘chimney’ and the fire easily spread over several floors. Another finding that has outraged the public is that the fire extinguishing systems in the residential tower had no water, so the fire could not be extinguished until the arrival of the fire brigades.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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