Earthquake readiness for hotels in Türkiye: the building, the team and the guests

Hotel earthquake safety in Türkiye has three parts: a documented emergency plan that names who does what, a building and fit-out review that fixes what can fall, and a guest card that tells a person on the sixth floor what to do at 3 a.m. Turkish workplace rules require the plan; AFAD's guidance sets the behavior.

It is 3 a.m. on the sixth floor. The building moves, the lights go out, and the guest in room 604 has never felt an earthquake in their life. The hotel has a fire plan in a folder at reception, and nothing in it tells that guest what to do in the next sixty seconds. After reading this article you will know what the plan must contain by law, what to ask about the building, what to fix inside it, what to print on the guest card, and what the night shift does during and after a tremor.

What does Turkish law ask a hotel's emergency plan to contain?#

It asks for one documented plan that names the people responsible, lists the emergencies identified from the risk assessment, sets out response and evacuation methods, and is posted where people can see it. The Regulation on Emergencies at Workplaces (opens in a new tab) (Resmî Gazete 18 June 2013, No. 28681, amended 1 October 2021, No. 31615) fixes the minimum contents, and a hotel plan that only covers fire does not meet the wording, because the regulation names natural disasters next to fire and explosion, hazardous substances and sabotage.

The evacuation plan is a drawing plus a list. It shows where emergency and firefighting equipment and first-aid supplies are kept, a sketch of escape routes, assembly points and alarms, the names, titles, areas of responsibility and contact details of appointed staff and their deputies, national and local emergency numbers, sections with special risks, and the cut-off points and valves for electricity and gas.

Guests count. Response and evacuation methods must take customers and visitors into account, not only workers, and in a hotel they are most of the people inside. The employer sets up extinguishing, rescue, protection and first-aid teams, and posts the evacuation plan at entrances and exits and on each floor, at eye level.

The rhythm is annual: drills at least once a year, renewal after relevant changes in or near the workplace, and in any case at least every two, four or six years depending on whether the workplace is very hazardous, hazardous or less hazardous. Confirm your own class and your records with your safety expert. The same discipline sits inside broader occupational health and safety in hotels, department by department.

Is the building the owner's question, and what should the owner ask?#

Yes, but it is a question for a qualified person, not for the front desk. The owner's job is to know the building's age, structure and history in writing, and to keep a survey on file instead of an opinion.

Ask for documents rather than memories: construction date, structural system, and every structural change, such as an added floor, a removed column or a wall opened for a spa or a lift, with its permit. Ask whether a structural performance survey exists, who carried it out and when, and keep the report in one file with the insurance policy and the utility shut-off drawings, somewhere the night manager can find it without calling anyone.

Non-structural elements are the hotel's own responsibility and are what a guest actually meets: partitions, suspended ceilings, cladding, chimneys, rooftop water tanks and signage. Aftershocks are part of the plan, not an afterthought. AFAD's booklet says they can continue for two to three months on average, even a year, becoming rarer and weaker, and that buildings badly damaged but not destroyed in the main shock can collapse in them (AFAD, İlk 72 Saat). That is why a post-tremor check exists.

No article and no checklist can tell you whether a building is safe. Only a written opinion from a competent engineer can, and it should be renewed after any change to the structure. Confirm your own case with a structural engineer, your insurer and your safety expert before you put anything about the building in front of a guest.

What has to be fixed inside the hotel before anything happens?#

Everything heavy that can fall, slide or break, area by area, plus the two places where the building's gas and electricity can be cut. AFAD's instruction for the moment of shaking is drop, cover and hold on: drop beside or under a sturdy object, cover your head and neck with your back to the windows, and hold on until the shaking stops (AFAD, İlk 72 Saat (opens in a new tab), 2011).

Keep people away from what AFAD lists: windows, glass partitions, shelves, cupboards, tall furniture and lit cookers. In a hotel that is a furnishing decision made in advance, not a training decision made at 3 a.m. If a stove is lit, turn it off first and then drop; the valve has to be reachable by a person who has never used it before, which means it is marked and the diagram is on the wall next to it.

The walk-round is the record. A dated list per floor, signed by the person who checked it and repeated before each season, is what shows the work was done; a memory of having done it is not. Fire equipment shares the same walk, so one inspection covers both, alongside the fire safety rules for hotels and the checklist before the fire report.

What should the guest card say, and in which languages?#

One card, in the guest's own language, that gives the three-step instruction for the shaking, the steps for immediately after, and where the assembly point is. It belongs in the room, not only in a folder at reception.

Languages are the hotel's operating languages plus the markets it actually receives, and a pictogram strip that carries the first three steps with no words at all, for the guest whose language you did not print. Placement matters as much as wording: on the back of the room door next to the fire card, at the lift lobby on every floor, and on the guest app screen if the hotel has one, so the same words appear in the place the guest is actually looking. The card pairs naturally with the in-room guest directory: what to include and in which languages.

Do not print "earthquake-proof", "this building is safe", or a blanket "stay in your room" or "evacuate immediately". AFAD says it is safe to stay inside after an earthquake if the building has no structural damage, which is a judgement made after a check, not a promise printed before one. A card is read at 3 a.m. only if it was seen at 3 p.m.: short lines, large type, laminated, in the same position in every room, so a guest can find it in the dark. Keep the fire card and the earthquake card together, so a walk-round checks one place per room rather than two.

What does the night shift do during and after a tremor?#

Four things in this order: protect themselves, stop the gas and electricity at the marked points if it is safe, check the escape routes and plant rooms, and account for people. Roles are named in advance and so are deputies, because the regulation requires both: a night manager in charge, a person at the panel, a person per floor, a person at the assembly point.

A responder who is injured is not a responder. Staff protection comes first, and that is a training point rehearsed in the annual drill, not a slogan on a wall. The occupied-room list already exists at the front desk; printing it at the start of each shift costs nothing and is the only reliable way to know who is inside when the system is down. The log is what the morning shift, the insurer and the tour operator will read: times and decisions as they happen, not impressions written the next afternoon.

Power belongs in the same first hour. Know which circuits the generator and the emergency lighting cover before the night you need them, and who is allowed to start the generator, as covered in a power cut at the hotel: the first hour and the generator. Confirm with your safety expert how your team is organized and recorded; this article describes the pattern, not your legal file.

When can guests go back in, and what do you tell them?#

People go back in when a competent person has checked the building, not when the shaking stops. Until then the message to guests is where to stand, what is known, what is not, and when the next update comes.

The check comes first: AFAD says it is safe to stay inside after an earthquake if the building has no structural damage, and that damaged buildings can collapse in aftershocks. So the return follows a floor-by-floor inspection of stairs, chimneys, parapets and plant rooms by someone competent. The reopening decision is written down: who decided, when, on what basis. It is the same discipline as any other compliance record, and it is the first thing an insurer asks for.

Families abroad need one published number and one page the front desk reads from, so that ten staff do not give ten versions of the same night. Tour operators and agencies need one named contact each, sharing the same facts; the contract usually says who speaks for the hotel, and that person should be at the desk, not on a plane. If guests leave, say what to take once and in the same words in every language: shoes, phone, medication, ID, a coat. Afterwards, keep the log and photographs for the insurer and hold a short review with the team while the detail is fresh. Change one thing in the plan and record the change.

What to do next#

This week, take the emergency plan out of the folder and read it against the checklist in the first section. If the earthquake is not named among the emergencies, if the assembly point is not drawn, or if no guest card exists, you have found your first three tasks. Then hand the building question to a structural engineer and the wording to your safety expert, and put the guest card on the back of every room door before the season starts.