Fire at ski resort hotel in Turkey kills 66 people

A fire at a hotel in a ski resort in Turkey has killed 66 people and injured 51, according to the country’s interior minister.

The blaze broke out around 3:30 a.m. on a restaurant floor of the 12-story Grand Kartal hotel in the resort of Kartalkaya in northern Turkey. It quickly engulfed the rest of the building, which had 234 people in it, state-run Anadolu Agency reported, citing the provincial governor.

It took around 10 hours to control the fire, the cause of which is being investigated, AA added. The hotel’s position at the top of a steep slope made it difficult to fight the fire, the agency reported.

January is peak ski season in Turkey and Kartalkaya, located between Istanbul and the capital Ankara, is one of the country’s most popular resorts.

At least two of the victims died after jumping from the building in panic, Anadolu reported. Others were seen tying sheets together and hanging them from the windows to escape.

“People on the upper floors were screaming,” Atakan Yelkovan, a guest at the hotel, told the IHA news agency. He added that there was no fire escape, no alarm went off, and it took around an hour for fire fighters to arrive.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cut short a speech at a party congress to oversee the response. He pledged the incident would be thoroughly investigated and those responsible would be held accountable.