“The emergency stairs were locked; there was no fire drill”
Cumhuriyet newspaper
reported the statements of the students who survived the fire in
Adana. 6th grade student, 11-year-old Y.K. said that she
started to stay in the dormitory at the beginning of this semester.
Y.K. said that the power went out when she was in the study hall on the third floor. Stating that they were studying with Sümeyye Yetim (killed), Bahtınur Baş, Cennet Karataş, Nurgül Pertlek (wounded) and Sema Karataş, Y.K. spoke as the following: “After the power went out, we tried to get out of the room. Then, someone said that she smells smoke. We opened the windows. We started to shout for help from our teachers. We looked down from the window and saw Mahmut Deniz, a worker in the dormitory. He told us to go to the emergency stairs. Friends in the study hall went to the emergency stairs, but I didn't want to go. I kept standing in front of the window.”
Y.K. said that the room was filled with smoke and she leaned out of the window to breathe and shout for help: “People outside the window stretched a blanket and told me to jump. My back started to burn because of the heat, so I jumped. After I jumped, the roof of the room collapsed. I never saw my friends who went to the emergency stairs again. And none of the teachers came to the room for helping us. I am alive thanks to the blanket.”
Y.K. also said that there was no fire drill in the dormitory: “We have never carried out a fire drill in this dormitory. We have never used the fire extinguishers before. I don't know how to use them.” The prosecutor also asked about the emergency stairway and Y.K. said: “When we first started to stay in the dormitory, I tried to open the doors of the emergency stairs. They were locked before the fire and I didn't try them during the fire. However, on the same day, before the fire, I went to the door of the emergency stairs on the third floor. We were playing a game and I tried to hide there. However, I saw that the door was locked.”
“The dormitory hasn't been inspected, there was no doorknob”
6th grade student N.Y. had been staying in the dormitory for 2 years. She said that there was no fire drill in 2 years and added: “Our teachers told us what to do during fire. There was no warning signs in the dormitory. I have never used the emergency stairs. However, there was no doorknob on the door of the emergency stairs on the 2nd floor. They didn't teach us how to use a fire extinguisher. Electrical fuse was blown 2 times during my time in the dormitory. And in 2 years, the dormitory had never been inspected.”
