The blaze started at around 3:30 am in the restaurant level of the 12 storey hotel. Photo: Screenshot//CBC
A devastating fire in Turkey at a ski resort has claimed the lives of 66 people and injured 51 others.
The fire, which started on the restaurant floor of the Grand Kartal Hotel in Kartalkaya, began at around 3:30 am local time.
“It was like the apocalypse. The flames engulfed the hotel immediately, like in half an hour,” Mevlut Ozer, who witnessed the blaze, told Reuters.
When fire fighters and medical personnel arrived on scene about 45 minutes after they received the first call, the building was had flames shooting from the roof. With a wooden front and a rear that backs onto a steep slope, emergency crews faced a difficult task. According to reports, “white bed sheets tied together and dangling from at least three upper-floor windows where people tried to flee.”
Eyewitness accounts of the fire are startling. “People all started to jump with panic. One friend jumped from the 11th floor — may God have mercy on him,” said Omer Sakrak, who works at a nearby hotel. “They tried to climb down using bedsheets. The bedsheets ripped as one friend tried … and he unfortunately fell on his head. “One father was yelling about his one year-old child: ‘I will throw my child or he will burn’.”
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told reporters that there were 238 guests at the hotel. Many of them tried to flee the smoke and heat by running through the hallways, frantically looking for an escape.
“I would like to share this pain, which is impossible to describe,” Yerlikaya said.
Turkish authorities are looking into the cause of the fire, and four people — including the hotel’s owner — have been detained as part of the investigation.
