Major negligence in Bolu tragedy! 'No training provided, no fire extinguishers available'

It was determined that at the Grand Kartal Hotel in Bolu, where 78 people died due to a fire, the emergency plan had not been updated for 5 years and there was no emergency response team. Ministry of Labor teams revealed that there were no portable fire extinguishers in the hotel.

Accordingly, there was no functional automatic fire detection and warning system in the hotel. It was also determined that employees had not been provided with occupational health and safety training, and there was no workplace physician at the hotel.

According to the report in Sputnik, it was also observed that customers and visitors were not informed about emergency situations, escape routes, or assembly points.

Officials from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security provided striking information regarding the disaster to the TBMM Kartalkaya Hotel Fire Investigation Commission.

NO FIRE EXTINGUISHERS

Bekir Aktürk, Head of Guidance and Inspection, stated that their inspections as a ministry revealed that the escape stairs and the doors providing access to escape routes were not fire-resistant or smoke-proof. Aktürk stated that there were no portable fire extinguishers in positions accessible to employees in the restaurant where the fire is understood to have started, or in the nearby kitchen area, and noted that there was no functional automatic fire detection and warning system.

NO EMERGENCY TEAM

According to the presentation Aktürk made to the commission, it was observed that the escape route doors providing access to fire escapes were not fire-resistant or smoke-proof. The fact that the hotel's exterior facade and interior floors, including carpets and walls, were covered with wooden materials increased the building's fire load. This caused the fire to spread rapidly. It was observed that the emergency plan dated April 19, 2020, had not been updated by the employer. It was also understood that no emergency protection team had been assigned.

ASSEMBLY POINT UNKNOWN

Stating that it was also determined that customers and visitors at the workplace were not informed about emergency situations, escape routes, assembly points, and emergency teams, Aktürk summarized the situation as follows:

“It is understood that employees were not provided with occupational health and safety training, no occupational safety specialist or workplace physician was assigned, and employees assigned to firefighting and rescue were not given specialized training. It is understood that customers and visitors were not taken into account when creating emergency response and evacuation methods in the emergency plan. It was observed that the emergency plan did not contain the matters specified in the relevant legislation. In other words, it was revealed that the preventive and limiting measures did not include an evacuation plan showing the emergency, response, and evacuation methods for the workplace or sections of the workplace.”