At least 66 tourists have been confirmed dead and 51 others sustained varying degrees of injuries after a devastating fire engulfed a hotel in the Turkish ski resort of Bolu.
The cause of the inferno is still unknown, but it is reported to have destroyed valuable goods and properties inside the rooms after the fire broke out at the 12-storey Grand Kartal Hotel.
As gathered, the blaze occurred at around 03:27 local time, during a busy holiday period when 234 people were staying in the hotel. Initially, 10 people were reported dead, but the toll was raised significantly in the hours following the fire.
At least two people died after jumping from the hotel’s windows to escape the flames. Footage circulating in the country showed people using linen to escape from the burning building by hanging it from windows.
According to Bolu Governor, Abdulaziz Aydin initial reports suggested the fire had broken out in the restaurant section of the hotel’s fourth floor and spread to the floors above.
The governor noted that the distance between the hotel, located in Kartalkaya, and the center of Bolu, combined with the freezing weather conditions, meant it took more than an hour for fire engines to arrive.
“Rescue efforts continued through the morning,” he said. “The interior minister said emergency services had deployed 267 people to respond to the fire.”
Although the fire was confined to one hotel, the governor added that a neighboring hotel was evacuated as a precaution.
The Ski instructor Necmi Kepcetutan, who managed to escape because he knew the hotel, said guests who did not know it as well as him were not as fortunate.
“People were shouting at the windows, ‘Save us,’ because there was intense smoke inside. We pulled 20-25 people out,” he said.
Meanwhile, Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said prosecutors had been assigned to investigate the cause of the fire.
