Unless you hold them accountable, you will think that only people you don't know will die!

We are angry. If the people in the chain of responsibility had performed their duties, they would not have died. Children, mothers, and fathers lost their lives in flames at that hotel where they had come for their semester break. It is devastating to hear the news about the fire.

Grand Hotel is one of the most popular hotels in Bolu Kartalkaya. The promotional text on its website has still not been removed. The following headline was used to promote the hotel;

Get Ready for an Unforgettable Winter Fairy Tale!

“Grand Kartal is a luxury paradise located at the peak of the mountains. Offering the splendor and peace of nature covered in a white blanket, our hotel provides our guests with an unforgettable winter holiday with its comfortable rooms and quality service. An experience full of modern amenities and activities intertwined with nature awaits you. Get ready for a holiday where you will enjoy every moment.”

The children, who entered the Grand Hotel laughing and playing for the snow holiday they had dreamed of for a long time, lost their lives in a fire that broke out in the middle of the night.

76 lives! There are those who are seriously injured. As a nation, we experienced an unforgettable winter nightmare. The people responsible for the disaster are busy trying to shift the blame onto others in a panic today.

Halil Ergül, the owner of the Grand Hotel, is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Turkey Tourism Promotion and Development Agency, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Ergül had received the Sustainable Tourism Program Certificate for his hotel, but the first aid, occupational health and safety, and fire training that should have been provided to the staff under the hotel's sustainability program had not been completed.

What saved people's lives was not the modern amenities mentioned in the hotel's promotional text, but the white bedsheets that families tied together and dangled from the window to save their children.

A month ago, the Bolu Municipality inspected the hotel upon the hotel management's petition and found the hotel inadequate in terms of fire safety in 8 subject areas. However, when the Grand Hotel withdrew its petition, a fire report could not be prepared.

The deficiencies stated by the Bolu Municipality regarding fire inadequacy are as follows;

Evacuation exits are insufficient, illuminated signage is insufficient, emergency exit lighting is insufficient, fire-stopping strips are insufficient, lightning rods are insufficient, and the restaurant area was not built in accordance with fire regulations.

According to people who managed to escape the hotel during the fire, there was no fire alarm; people woke each other up by knocking on room doors. Because of the smoke that made breathing difficult, it was already impossible to reach the fire escape inside the hotel, and the fire escapes themselves caught fire!

Shouldn't a hotel with a roof and an entire exterior made of wood be very sensitive to fire regulations?

Could the insurance company that insured this hotel, which has many wooden sections, have failed to ask about fire safety precautions? Questions about fire alarm systems, sprinkler systems, fire exits, and fire training are among the most important items in the risk assessment of many insurance companies.

The following sentence from a hotel employee who survived the Kartalkaya fire actually tells all the citizens of this country so much;

People bought their shrouds for 37 thousand liras!

We are angry. Because the pain has piled up like a mountain, one on top of the other.

We have lost thousands of our people due to preventable disasters. The Pamukova train accident, the Kütahya train accident, the Marmara flood disaster, the Soma mine disaster, the Aladağ student dormitory fire, the Ankara train accident, the Mediterranean forest fires, the Western Black Sea flood disaster, the İliç mine disaster, the Kahramanmaraş earthquake, the Balıkesir ammunition factory explosion, the cable car disaster, the Beşiktaş nightclub fire, the Adıyaman-Şanlıurfa flood disaster, etc…

No one assigned to manage the country has any concern about being held accountable! Those who sit in positions of responsibility must also have a conscience.

If Turkey were a modern, democratic country, Minister of Culture and Tourism Nuri Ersoy would have asked to be relieved of his duties and resigned today.

As long as we, as a society, fail to hold them accountable, the people in the chain of responsibility will always shift the blame to others. The point that structural negligence has reached in Turkey has now turned into structural violence.

Unless you hold them accountable, unless you seek your rights, you will always think that those negligences will always kill others.

Until the day it happens to you and your loved ones.

In a country where merit, inspection, morality, and conscience no longer exist, your life is entrusted only to yourself.

Structural violence does not recognize class either.

Everything is expensive, only human life is cheap.