With help from Mert Ozkan and Huseyin Hayatsever
KARTALKAYA, Turkey (Reuters) – On Tuesday, a fire at a hotel at a ski area in Turkey’s Bolu mountains killed 66 people. In the middle of the night, guests were so scared they had to jump out of windows.
Ali Yerlikaya, the Interior Minister, said at the Kartalkaya ski area in northwest Turkey that 51 people were also hurt.
Authorities say the fire started on the kitchen floor of the 12-story Grand Kartal Hotel around 3:30 a.m. (00:30 GMT).
A group of fire trucks and ambulances circled the burned-out building with a wood front. White bed sheets were tied together and hung from an upper-floor window where people were trying to escape.
Baris Salgur, a hotel guest, told NTV that people jumped out of windows to get away. Two women on the top floor told people on the ground to get their pillows ready. “When the fire got close they jumped right away,” he noted.
Another guest told Ekol TV that he and his family woke up to the sound of a fire but didn’t hear any alarms. They then went into smokey hallways and jumped from a lower-floor window onto snow below.
Yerlikaya said that the hotel at the base of several ski hills had 238 guests. Even in the afternoon, it was still on fire.
In his condolences, he said, “I would like to share this pain, which is impossible to describe.”
“The fire is no longer going.” Cooling attempts are still going on. It was only possible to put out the fire from the front and sides of the hotel because the back is on a hill.
He also said that firefighters started fighting the fire about 45 minutes after the first call.
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There was a probe going on into the fire, which happened during the school break, when many families from nearby Ankara and Istanbul go to the Bolu mountains to ski.
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