Istanbul’s Haydarpaşa train station sweeps up the ashes

ERİSA DAUTAJ ŞENERDEM

ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

As investigations seek to shed light on the cause of Sunday’s blaze at the historical Haydarpaşa train station, citizens remain skeptical, calling on civil society and experts to demand protection of the landmark building. An investigation team is assigned to cooperate with the state prosecutor in analyzing the cause of the fire

Officials have begun investigating Sunday’s fire at the Haydarpaşa train station. DAILY NEWS photo, Emrah GÜREL

Time has stopped at 3:17 for Istanbul’s historical Haydarpaşa train station, the exact minute the building’s roof caught fire Sunday evening. But it is not just the clock on the building’s front façade that has stopped: Life has also halted at Haydarpaşa, which normally receives hundreds of passengers from across the country each day. Instead, the station smells of ash and there is a pessimistic air.

Passengers took a deep breath filled with sorrow as the Eminönü-Kadıköy ferry passed in front of the partly burned building.

“I have no words to express my sorrow for Haydarpaşa,” said Emine Deveci, 48, on the ferry Monday morning. Another passenger, Sadiye Çoplan, 66, said, “I burst into tears when I saw Haydarpaşa burning, it carries value that cannot be bought with money.” Çoplan also said she hoped the fire was a result of carelessness and not anyone’s nefarious intent.

Other people expressed doubt on the cause of the fire. “Haydarpaşa has often been a target for rent-making,” Mehmet Zaman, 58, an Ankaran cook, told the Daily News while waiting at Haydarpaşa for the Ankara express train, adding that civil society and experts had to raise their voice for the protection of the building. “It is a shame they did not extinguish the fire from the air.”

“Any possibility that the fire was set intentionally, or any irregularity, will be explored to the smallest detail,” said Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım at a press conference Monday.

A fact-finding team is expected to prepare of a report about the cause of the fire. The team will analyze the scene with the state prosecutor, Selahattin Aydoğdu.

Istanbul City Planners Chairman Tayfun Kahraman told the Daily News very strict measures had to be taken during repair work on such buildings, with structures containing wood as one of the main building components. “It is obvious that the contractor was not as careful as it should have been,” he said.

The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality in December last year approved an urban transformation project for Haydarpaşa and the surrounding area. The project aimed to turn Haydarpaşa into a commercial and tourist center, with the station also being used as a hotel.

The fire seems like a message that the building will soon be used for rent-making purposes, according to a written statement from the Construction Engineers Chamber’s governing board. “A decision that the historical building cannot be used as a train station anymore, for security reasons, [is very likely in the near future],” the statement said.

“The fire at Haydarpaşa brought the plans for the area’s urban transformation project on the agenda once more,” Orhan Silier, chairman of Turkey’s Economic and Social History Foundation, told the Daily News in a Monday phone interview. “[People’s sensitivity to the fire at Haydarpaşa] is a clear indicator of how dear it is to them and what a mistake the application an urban transformation project in the area would be.”