Overview
- Rescue teams recovered two bodies and took a third person to hospital after a conical 'fairy chimney' fell inside the Göreme Open‑Air Museum at about 15:15 on Thursday.
- Nevşehir Governor Hüseyin Kök said the immediate cause was a rain‑triggered landslide that caused a large rock to detach and collapse onto visitors.
- Capadocia tourism chief Cem Aslanbey told reporters that decades of wind and water erosion plus freeze–thaw cycles had weakened the soft volcanic rock and likely made the formation vulnerable.
- Videos of the collapse circulated on social media showing a vast dust cloud, and authorities closed the site while search, rescue and recovery operations continued and a local prosecutor opened an investigation.
- The incident raises safety and conservation questions for a landscape that draws millions of visitors and contains rock‑cut churches and other fragile heritage features that are vulnerable to weather and erosion.