Four people injured in hotel fire in Turkey’s İzmir, two women leap for safety

İZMİR

A total of four people were injured in a hotel fire in the Aegean province of İzmir early on March 7.

The fire erupted in the five-story hotel named “Alican” in İzmir’s Basmane district. Two women were injured after jumping from the fifth floor of the hotel.

The women jumped onto cars parked in front of the hotel and were seriously hurt. One of the jumping women landed on a car after first hitting an electric wire.

Two other people who were affected by smoke were evacuated from the windows of the building by fire crews.

Other people in the hotel were safely evacuated. The injured people were taken to the Tepecik and Katip Çelebi University hospitals.

Officials said the fire was quickly brought under control. They also said the hotel’s first three floors were empty because of ongoing renovation works.

İzmir’s Konak district governor Mehmet Eriş also arrived on the scene to examine the investigation.

Fire crews said the fire could have erupted after the explosion of a battery charger plugged into a socket on the fifth floor.

One of the hotel’s guests, Nuri Mutlukal, who also witnessed the fire, said they noticed the smoke while chatting with staff in the hotel’s reception.

“After I rescued my wife and went downstairs, a young woman jumped on the car. The fire crews intervened. Then another woman jumped from upstairs. We went straight to the safe area opposite the hotel. Hotel officials first intervened in the fire with fire-extinguisher tubes, and then fire crews controlled the fire,” Mutlukal said.

Another guest in the hotel, Yüksel Sunter, said they had tried to persuade the woman not to jump from the building but had failed.

“We called the fire brigade and the ambulance. When the flames rose, two women wanted to jump from the building, we said ‘don’t jump’ but they were constrained. We caught one of them but the other one fell on the car,” Sunter said.