Istanbul:
A fire engulfed a hotel at a ski resort in northwestern Turkey on Tuesday, killing 10 people and injuring 32 others, the interior minister said.
Witnesses said desperate guests had tried to escape using ropes, footage showed bedsheets hanging from the windows, and media reports suggests some had died after trying to jump to safety.
Several ministers have arrived at the scene at the Kartalkaya resort around 170 kilometres (100 miles) northwest of the capital Ankara, and officials said the fire had now been contained.
The blaze broke out at 3:27 am (0027 GMT) in the 12-storey Grand Kartal hotel, which has wooden cladding, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X.
Local media reported at least 230 people were staying at the hotel, a peak time during a two-week school holiday.
Private NTV broadcaster said the dead included three people who had jumped from the hotel’s windows.
The fire is believed to have started in the restaurant and spread quickly, though it was not immediately clear what caused it.
Part of it backs onto a cliff, making it harder for firefighters to tackle the blaze.
Television footage showed huge plumes of smoke rising into the sky with a snowcapped mountain behind the hotel.
“I heard screams around midnight, (hotel) residents were shouting for help,” Baris Salgur, who works at a nearby hotel, told NTV television.
“They asked for a blanket, saying they will jump … we did what we could, we brought rope, pillows, we brought a sofa. Some people threw themselves once the flames approached them.”
Officials fear the number of dead could rise.
‘No safety’
Footage showed the wrecked lobby of the hotel with shards of glass on the floor, the reception desk and the wooden furniture inside charred black.
Authorities warned the building could collapse.
A survivor who managed to escape the flames told local media that no alarms rang at the hotel when the fire started, complaining lack of any safety measures including fire stairs or smoke detector.
Footage revealed hotel sheets hanging from the hotel’s windows indicating some tied them in order to escape the blaze.
“I pray to God for mercy upon our citizens who lost their lives in the fire,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on X.
He said he wished a speedy recovery to the injured affected by “this tragic accident”, adding that an investigation had been launched.
Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said six prosecutors had been allocated to investigate the blaze.
Those evacuated were rehoused in nearby hotels.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
