At least 29 workers died and two were seriously injured yesterday in a fire at an Istanbul nightclub. The Masquerade club is in the basement of a 16-storey building in the Turkish city’s Besiktas district, known for its nightlife, and was being renovated. Nine people have been arrested in connection with the blaze.
The fire has shone a spotlight on the dangers to construction workers in Turkey. Last year, almost 2,000 died in workplace accidents. Trade unions and opposition parties have long accused the government of failing to enforce safety regulations in order to maintain economic growth and attract foreign companies.
A construction boom has been taking place in Turkey following last year’s huge earthquake in which tens of thousands of people died, many from buildings collapsing. In the rush to rebuild, there has been a spike in workplace deaths, and authorities continue to turn a blind eye to safety rules.
Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul, promised to investigate the incident, but said that the club had not sought permission to carry out renovations. The initial investigation showed that some of the suspects for causing the fire have previous criminal records related to intentional injury, sexual harassment, drug possession, and illegal possession of firearms. According to emergency services, the fire was caused by an explosion of a gas cylinder used for welding. Most of the workers died of smoke poisoning.
‘The club was shut for the month of Ramadan’, said Orhan Tuncay, who works at a small restaurant next door. ‘They do this every year out of respect and use the time to do renovations. First we saw the smoke coming out. Apparently, one of the two exits was locked and the other was blocked by the fire trapping the workers inside. The smoke from the paints and other materials was poisonous, we even saw some of the firefighters almost fainting.’
A construction trade union boss said the workers who died were under pressure to finish work by the end of Ramadan next week. Ozgur Karabulut, head of the DEV Yapi-Is union, said: ‘Under such pressure and chaotic conditions accidents are inevitable.’
This devastating fire is the last thing that Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan needs, after he lost the Istanbul municipal elections on Monday. Erdogan was blamed last year for presiding over a culture of lax building standards which led to so many deaths in the earthquake. Some contractors even set up their own building standards companies, to mark their own homework.
Erdogan said in the days after the earthquake that all Turks ‘have lessons to learn from the disaster we have lived through’. This latest fire suggests that this has not yet happened.
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