A fire at the Kartal Grand Hotel early Monday morning killed at least 76 people, making it the worst disaster of its kind in Turkey’s history.

Some survivors said they did not hear the sirens, and experts told the BBC they did not expect such a high death toll in a hotel with functioning fire protection systems.

The 12-story hotel in Turkey’s famous Kartakaya ski resort welcomes tens of thousands of tourists every year, so it’s understandable that Turks are wondering how such a horrific tragedy could have happened at the start of a two-week school holiday .

The fire broke out in the fourth-floor restaurant area at 03:27 am (00:27 GMT) and firefighters arrived within 45 minutes, the interior minister said.

Some survivors described smelling smoke as early as an hour earlier.

Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, said the hotel has a fire-fighting capability certificate issued by the “fire department.”

But that was disputed by local mayor Tanju Ozcan, who said the fire department had not issued a positive report since 2007.

Some survivors said they did not hear the alarm, while some claimed the hotel’s fire-extinguishing system was inadequate.

“My wife smelled fire,” said Atakan Yelkovan, who said he lived on the third floor of the hotel.

“We went down before the others. The alarm didn’t go off…it took about an hour to an hour and a half before the fire brigade came. Meanwhile, the fourth and fifth floors were burning. People upstairs were screaming.”

Some guests living on higher floors tried to escape with their bedding, while others jumped to their deaths.

Eylem Senturk said the fire alarm didn’t go off until she was outside the building. Her husband had to jump from his hotel porch because of the smoke: “We were lucky to survive.”

The BBC attempted to contact the hotel’s management regarding the allegations but has so far received no response.

Nine people, including the hotel owner, have been detained as part of Türkiye’s investigation.

Hotel managers released a statement saying they mourned the loss and were cooperating fully with authorities.

Experts say that in large buildings with fully operational fire protection systems, fire detectors can be expected to respond to a fire within seconds and send an alert to the fire control dashboard.

Kazim Beceren, chairman of the Turkish Fire and Education Foundation, told the BBC: “In a good company, there should be someone responsible for the group 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

The death toll is also very high, which raises further questions.

Professor Sevket Ozgur Atayilmaz, head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Yildiz Technical University, who works in fire safety planning, said: “Fires will always happen, but we To think that so many people would die in this type of building.”

“If the building is designed correctly for fire protection, if there are escape routes and the smoke is evacuated correctly, it is possible to extinguish the fire without causing loss of life.”

The Home Secretary said there were two fire escapes but there were signs they were not of a high standard.

Erol Percin, an official with the Turkish Association of Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) in Bolu, said the way the fire spread suggested that fire warning, detection and extinguishing systems may not have existed.

He said the building’s wooden facade was supposed to be 100 percent fireproof, but that didn’t appear to be the case.

The head of the Turkish Fire and Education Foundation told the BBC that the scale of the fire showed that “the fire protection system either did not exist or was not designed according to standards”.

The number of people staying at the Grand Kartal Hotel at that time was 238.

Kazim Beceren said the fire safety system is designed to evacuate people within three minutes per floor, and under ideal conditions, a facility housing more than 200 people can be evacuated in 15 to 30 minutes.

The head of the Turkish Fire and Education Foundation said that when the alarm sounds, the person in charge of the fire dashboard will check the location.

If there is no evidence of a false alarm, or if a second detector sounds a warning, the entire building fire alarm will usually be activated.

In a properly installed system, people are directed to the nearest fire exit via an announcement, flashing lights for the hearing-impaired, and audible warnings for those sleeping.

Because fires spread so quickly, sprinkler systems are important for early intervention.

The same goes for backup power. According to fire regulations, signs pointing to emergency exits and lights showing the path to those exits must operate for one to three hours even if the power is out.

Bolu’s engineers and architects union said in a statement that a building of this size “must have an automatic sprinkler system installed”.

“Photos on the hotel’s website show that the sprinkler system that should have been installed in 2008 was not installed. As a result of this failure, the fire spread rapidly and resulted in casualties.”

BBC Turkish has not been able to independently confirm the allegations about the building’s wooden cladding or the hotel’s fire suppression system.

One of the biggest questions is whether the hotel’s fire protection system has been properly inspected.

Bolu mayor Tanju Ozcan said the tourism ministry was responsible because the hotel was outside the town’s boundaries. Errol Persing agreed.

The mayor said the last time the Bolu Municipality submitted a report on hotel fire protection was in 2007, and no such inspections have been conducted since then.

However, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, director of the Culture and Tourism Bureau, said the hotel did have a fire-fighting qualification certificate “issued by the fire department” and that inspections were carried out by them.

There have also been calls for a review of the relatively old structure due to changes in legislation.

“In crowded places such as hotels, residences, nursing homes or kindergartens, operations should be stopped if they do not meet current standards,” said Professor Atelmaz of Yildiz Technical University.