Ten people killed in fire at Turkish ski resort
getty imagesA fire at a hotel in the Turkish ski resort Bolu has killed 10 people and injured 32 others, according to Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya.
According to Turkish reports, at least two victims died after jumping from hotel windows.
They said the fire broke out at 03:27 local time (00:27 GMT) during the busy holiday season at the 12-storey Grand Kartal hotel, when 234 people were staying there.
Footage broadcast in Turkey showed linens hanging from windows being used by people trying to escape the burning building.
Bolu Governor Abdulaziz Aydin said initial reports showed the fire started in the restaurant section of the hotel’s fourth floor and had spread to the floors above.
The hotel is investigating whether guests were trapped in their rooms as the fire spread.
The governor told reporters that due to the distance between the hotel in Karatalkaya and the center of Bolu, due to cold weather conditions, it took more than an hour for fire engines to arrive.
Rescue efforts continued into the morning and the interior minister said emergency services had deployed 267 people to tackle the fire.
By mid-morning the local mayor said they were still trying to access parts of the hotel.
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getty imagesThe Bolu mountains are popular with skiers from Istanbul and the capital Ankara and the hotel was running at high occupancy at the start of the two-week school holidays.
The northwestern city is about 170 km (105 mi) from Ankara.
Although the fire was confined to one hotel, the governor told Turkish media that a neighboring hotel had been evacuated as a precaution.
Ski instructor Necmi Kepsetutan told Turkish TV that he managed to escape because he knew the hotel, while guests who did not know it as well as him were not as lucky.
“People were shouting at the windows, ‘Save us,’ because there was so much smoke inside. We pulled 20-25 people out,” he told NTV.
It is not yet clear under what circumstances the fire broke out.
Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunç said that prosecutors were assigned to investigate the blast.
