Mayor Fires Back at Critics After Ski Resort Fire Killed 76, Calls Allegations 'Lies and Slander'

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated. The initial story incorrectly asserted that Mayor Tanju Özcan of Bolu had been detained, which is not true. This has been corrected in the current text.

A mayor is firing back at critics after a fire at a ski-resort killed 76 guests in Turkey’s Bolu province.

Bolu mayor Tanju Özcan wrote on X that the allegations of misconduct prior to the fire involving him were “lies and slander.” 

“If you want to hear the lies and slanders about the fire in Bolu and if you want to listen to the truth, I will be on live broadcast on Halk TV tonight at 21:00,” he wrote in Turkish. “Let’s not have an opinion without being informed, I leave it to everyone’s own discretion what they will think after being informed.”

It wasn’t immediately clear what misconduct he was referring to. He is a member of Turkey’s opposition party, Reuters reported earlier this month.

Eleven people have been apprehended by authorities in relation to the fire, including the Deputy Mayor of Bolu Municipality’s fire department and the hotel’s owner.

The fire, at the Grand Kartal Hotel, in the resort of Kartalkaya, left 76 people dead, including entire families and 20 children, per local outlets Serbestiyet, the Hürriyet Daily News and Turkish Minute. 

“At least a quarter of our customers were children,” Necmi Kepçetutan, a 58-year-old ski instructor, told Sözcü. “I have students I couldn’t reach. I don’t know where they are. I’m just praying.”

Several survivors have claimed the fire alarms did not ring for a lengthy period after the fire broke out, the BBC reported.

“My wife smelled the burning. The alarm did not go off,” Atakan Yelkovan, a guest at the hotel told the news agency IHA, per the Associated Press. “We tried to go upstairs but couldn’t, there were flames. We went downstairs and came [outside].”

Some guests said that firefighters did not arrive for a long time, per the BBC.

The firefighters’ response time was slowed due to the frigid weather as well as the resort’s distance from the city center, Bolu governor Abdulaziz Aydin previously said, per the outlet.

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Authorities have not yet released a cause of the fire but Aydin said it likely broke out in the restaurant and spread.

The investigation into the fire is “being carried out with great sensitivity, multi-faceted and meticulousness,” Tunç said on X on Wednesday.

No Americans have been reported to be injured or present at the resort as of publication time.