A Turkish court has jailed the owners and architect of a hotel that collapsed during a 2023 earthquake, killing 72 people.

Isias Grand owner Ahmet Bozkurt and architect Erdem Yilmaz were each sentenced to 18 years and five months in prison, the official Anadolu news agency reported. Bozkurt’s son, Mehmet Fatih, was sentenced to 17 years and four months in prison.

The hotel in the southeastern city of Adiyaman was hosting a school volleyball team and a group of tour guides from Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus when the earthquake struck last February.

Anadolu said the three men were found guilty of “willful negligence resulting in the death or injury of multiple persons”.

Turkish Cypriot Prime Minister Unal Uster said the sentence was too light and authorities would appeal, AFP reported.

“The hotel owners didn’t get the punishment we expected,” Ustell said. “But nonetheless, everyone from the people responsible for the hotel’s construction to the architects were sentenced. That makes us somewhat happy.”

On February 6, 2023, earthquakes struck Türkiye and Syria, killing more than 50,000 people.

About 160,000 buildings collapsed or were severely damaged, leaving 1.5 million people homeless.

The Turkish government said weeks later that hundreds of people were under investigation and nearly 200 arrested, including construction contractors and owners.

When the earthquake struck, 39 people from the Turkish Educational Institute in Famagusta, including boys and girls, teachers and parents, went to Adiyaman to participate in a volleyball match.

Four of the parents were the sole survivors. They managed to crawl out of the rubble, but all 35 people, including all children, died.

The volleyball team chose the seven-story Isias Grand hotel, where as many as 40 tour guides were trained.

It was one of the most famous hotels in Adiyaman, but it soon collapsed.

The Isias building has been in operation since 2001, but according to scientific analysis, gravel and sand from local rivers were mixed with other construction materials to form the columns that support the building.

The scale of building collapses in the quake sparked widespread criticism of Turkey’s government for encouraging a building boom but failing to enforce building regulations that were tightened after earlier disasters.