Blaze Ruins Galatasaray University Building

* Photo: ‏@taygunongoren

A blaze raged through the historical Bosporus building of Galatasaray University last night, leaving the central campus building in ruins.

Ethem Tolga, the university's president, told NTV that the fire was most likely caused by an electrical fault.

"I guess it was around 7pm when I saw a cloud smoke going under a department office door. We were promptly evacuated and the campus security was the first to intervene," Galatasaray University teaching staff Ozlem Yuce told NTV.

While the fire was assumed to be under control after a while, another location set fire and spread around the building, Yuce continued.

As the flames raged, firefighters had to use fire-extinguishing boats to hose the 140-year-old wooden structure from the sea, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

"Recently, many fires raged in Istanbul's historical buildings. This is very curious," Ilber Ortayli, history professor at Galatasaray University, told NTV last night. "The building should be restored to its original. We also lost 6,000 unique books that had no other copies."

Established in  1871, the historical building was one of several mansions built as annexes to an Ottoman palace, that served for Turkey's prestigious Galatasaray University since 1992.

According to NTV, a fire squat of 110 infantries, 47 fire extinguishing vehicles and 2 fire fighter ships were deployed to battle with blaze in Istanbul's bosporus. The team was reported to control the blaze after a hard of 4 hours, slightly before midnight. (ÇT/NV)