ANKARA (Reuters) – A fire at a hotel in a ski resort in northwestern Turkey killed at least 10 people and injured 32 on Tuesday, Turkish authorities said, while guests who had to leave the The establishment on fire in the middle of the night described scenes of panic.
The fire broke out around 3:30 a.m. local time (00:30 GMT) on the upper floor of the restaurant of the Grand Kartal hotel in the Kartalkaya ski resort in Bolu province, authorities said.
Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told of the incident.
A hotel guest told broadcaster NTV that he saw people jumping out of windows to escape the flames.
Another customer told Ekol TV that he and his family ended up jumping from a window on a lower floor.
According to Bolu provincial governor Abdulaziz Aydin, 234 people were staying at the hotel, which has a wooden exterior and is located at the foot of several ski slopes. The fire was still burning shortly after noon local time.
-The fire comes at the start of a two-week nationwide school vacation, a time when many families from the neighboring cities of Istanbul and Ankara usually travel to the Bolu Mountains to ski.
Investigators are still determining the cause of the fire, authorities said.
(Reporting Huseyin Hayatsever; written by Jonathan Spicer; French version Diana Mandia, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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