During the day, renovations were taking place at the Masquerade club, located in the basement of a high-rise building in Istanbul.
The fire broke out shortly after midday, Istanbul Governor Davut Gül said, adding that the reason was unknown.
Mr. Gül stated that the victims of the incident were believed to be participating in the remodeling work.
As investigations continue, eight people, including the nightclub manager and the person in charge of the renovations, have warrants for their arrest in connection with the incident.
The police have jailed three of them, and warrants for the others are still pending.
Firefighters and other first responders surrounded the club’s charred and smoking entrance, which is two levels below a 16-story residential structure in the city’s Gayrettepe neighborhood.
The number of victims has swiftly grown throughout the afternoon, with the governor’s office providing a series of updates.
The newly re-elected Mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, stated that the club had not applied for the proper construction authorization.
“There is no application [to the local municipality] for a renovation or a construction regarding the place, and as it was two floors down from the ground level, it [the work] wasn’t visible,” he added.
He also expressed his sympathy to the victims through social media.
“May God have mercy on our citizens who lost their lives, and I wish a speedy recovery to our injured,” he wrote in a message on X, formerly Twitter.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s President, learned of the incident during a phone call with Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya.
