The fatal electrocution of two people who stepped into a puddle in Turkey has caused widespread anger in the country.

Security camera video footage showing the tragic deaths of 23-old woman Ozge Ceren Deniz, a fifth-year medical student, and 44-year-old man Inanc Oktemay—who attempted to help Deniz—quickly spread across social media.

READER ADVISORY: Video contains footage that may be distressing to some readers:

Poignantly, as Turks reflected on the distressing incident, a 2014 social media post from Oktemay, in which he quoted Albert Camus as remarking "One of the ways to understand a country is to know how people die there", resurfaced.

The deaths led to calls for those responsible for the incident in Konak, Izmir, western Turkey, to give an accounting in court for their alleged negligence. Most of those on social networks who reacted to the tragedy that took place amid a downpour pointed the finger at local authority and electricity utility officials.

Eyewitness 58-year-old Isa Yaman told ANKA News Agency that “I saw the incident from across the street, I couldn't intervene. The electric wires have been there for six years. I got electrocuted twice in the foot. I barely survived... I have been warning them for many years. I said, 'There is electricity here [from exposed wires], fix it’. They left it unfixed.”

Shopkeeper Ahmet Guner told DHA: “I am a shopkeeper 20 metres away. It is a very sad event. That [sewer] has been malfunctioning for years. So it is a recurring situation as I understand it. It’s a point where electricity pipes and wires pass. A few months ago, on a rainy day, I saw water boiling in a puddle there due to an electrical leakage. They came and intervened at that moment, but as far as I understand, the problem was not solved.”

Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc on July 14 said on X that the Izmir Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office had launched an investigation into the incident and issued detention warrants for 29 people, including nine Izmir Water and Sewage Administration (IZSU) employees and 20 employees and officials from the GDZ Electricity Distribution Company.

Birgun daily reported on July 15 that Deniz was electrocuted when she stepped into a large puddle in a busy street in Konak on July 12. Both she and Oktemay died in hospital, it added.

The incident triggered debates on the privatisation of Turkish electricity distribution. The assets and obligations of the Turkish Electricity Distribution Company (TEDAS) were transferred to private companies between 2004 and 2013.

Birgun quoted Mahir Ulutas, chairman of the Chamber of Electrical Engineers (EMO), as saying problems such as exposed wires were related to a lack of supervision exercised in the wake of the electricity distribution privatisation.

He described accusations by the Izmir Municipality and GDZ against one another as “tragicomic.”

GDZ blamed the municipality for the construction of storm water gratings without approval and damage to the electricity network, while the municipality alleged that GDZ carried out maintenance and repair work on power lines alongside the storm water gratings, according to local media.