A fire at a private all-girls dormitory in the Aladag district in the southern province of Adana broke out on Nov. 29. Twelve people, including the 4-year-old daughter of the dorm manager, 10 female students, the oldest of whom was 13 years old, and a 20-year-old female educator were killed. There are 24 wounded students, mostly from jumping out of the windows to escape the fire and smoke.
An obsolete electrical fuse panel and a fault in the old electricity switches were cited as causes of the fire in a preliminary report prepared by the Aladag attorney general’s office. The fire spread quickly from the lower to upper floors, ultimately resulting in the wood roof collapsing. The carpet in the dorm was made out of a material that is derived from petroleum, adding to the speed in which the fire spread. Moreover, the building’s fire exit was made of plastic and did not have handles. There is a dispute over whether the fire escape door was locked. Adana Mayor Huseyin Sozlu said the doors were locked, but Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak, who along with several other ministers and officials visited the site, quoted the prosecutor’s initial examinations and stated there was no lock on the fire escape door.
“Our firefighters are experts in this job. Students went to upper floors toward the fire escape doors, but they couldn’t open them,” Sozlu said. “This could be either because the doors were locked or the plastic door handles melted.” Four bodies were found in one room and eight bodies in the second room of the upper floor. Firefighter Unit Department head Fatih Durukan shared with Haberturk heartbreaking news that the girls stuck in the fire were in the middle of each room and waited their painful deaths while holding each other’s hands.
Numerous irregularities about the tragedy have been revealed. First, children younger than 15 years are not supposed to stay in private dorms, except in cases of sanctioned protection. So the students were staying in the dorm against the law. The Education Ministry authorized the dormitory after an inspection was conducted in June, and Minister of Education Ismet Yilmaz stated there were no problems and that lessons will be learned from this event. Yet questions remain over the accuracy of the report.
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