10 people died in a fire at the Bolu hotel in the Turkish ski resort

According to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Turkey, Ali Yerlikay, as a result of a fire in a hotel in the Turkish ski resort of Bolu, 10 people died and another 32 were injured.

At least two victims died after jumping out of the hotel windows, according to Turkish reports.

The fire broke out at the 12-story Grand Kartal Hotel at 03:27 local time (00:27 GMT) during the busy holiday period, when 234 people were staying there, he added.

Footage circulating in Turkey shows laundry hanging from windows used by those trying to escape from the burning building.

Bolu Governor Abdulaziz Aydin said that according to initial reports, the fire broke out in the restaurant area of ​​the fourth floor of the hotel and spread to the floors above.

The hotel was investigating whether guests were trapped in their rooms as the fire spread.

The governor told reporters that the distance between the hotel in Kartalka and the center of Bolu, combined with freezing weather conditions, meant that fire engines took more than an hour to arrive.

Rescue operations continued into the morning, and the interior minister said 267 emergency services had been dispatched to tackle the fire.

By mid-morning, the local mayor said they were still trying to get to part of the hotel.

The Bolu Mountains are popular with skiers from Istanbul and the capital, Ankara, and at the start of the two-week school holidays, the hotel was operating at high occupancy.

The northwestern city is about 170 km (105 mi) from Ankara.

Although the fire was confined to one hotel, the governor told Turkish media that a nearby hotel had been evacuated as a precaution.

Ski instructor Nejmi Kepcetutan told Turkish television that he was able to escape because he knew the hotel, and guests who didn’t know it as well as he did were not so lucky.

“People were shouting out the windows, ‘Help’, because there was heavy smoke inside. We pulled out 20-25 people,” he told NTV.

The circumstances that led to the fire have not yet been clarified.

Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç said that the prosecutor’s office was appointed to investigate the fire.