A fire at a ski resort hotel in Turkey's Bolu mountains killed 66 people on Tuesday and forced panicked guests to jump out of windows in the middle of the night.
Firefighters work to extinguish a fire at a hotel in the ski resort of Kartalkaya in Bolu province, Turkey, January 21, 2025. Reuters/Mert Ozkan
A fire at a ski resort hotel in Turkey's Bolu mountains killed 66 people on Tuesday and forced panicked guests to jump out of windows in the middle of the night.
Some 51 people were also injured, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said at the Kartalkaya ski resort in northwest Turkey.
The fire began around 3:30 a.m. (0030 GMT) on the restaurant floor of the 12-storey Grand Kartal Hotel, authorities said.
Several fire engines and ambulances surrounded the charred, wood-fronted building, with white bed sheets tied together and dangling from one upper-floor window where people tried to flee.
Baris Salgur, a hotel guest, told broadcaster NTV that people jumped from windows to escape, including two women on the top floor who urged those on the ground to ready pillows. "When the fire got close they jumped right away," he said.
Another guest told Ekol TV that he and his family woke up to the fire but did not hear alarms, then entered smoke-filled corridors and eventually jumped from a lower-floor window onto snow below.
Yerlikaya said there were 238 guests at the hotel lying at the base of several ski slopes. It was still smouldering in the afternoon.
"I would like to share this pain, which is impossible to describe," he said in offering condolences.
"The fire has now been extinguished. Cooling efforts are ongoing. Since the back of the hotel is on a slope, fire extinguishing efforts could only be carried out from the front and side facades."
He added that fire crews began battling the blaze about 45 minutes after the first call.
An investigation was underway into the fire, which coincided with school holidays when many families from nearby Istanbul and Ankara head to the Bolu mountains to ski.
By Mert Ozkan and Huseyin Hayatsever
Lebanon holds one of the largest gold reserves in the Middle East. Now, as the country sinks deeper into economic collapse, officials are quietly debating whether that stockpile could help stabilize a shattered financial system, a move that remains politically toxic and legally constrained.
The death toll from the collapse of residential buildings in the Lebanese city of Tripoli rose to 14 after search and rescue operations ended, Lebanon's National News Agency said on Monday citing the civil defence chief.
Iranian activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who has been imprisoned repeatedly in her three-decade campaign for women's rights, was sentenced to a new prison term of 7-1/2 years, a group supporting her said on Sunday.
To make this website run properly and to improve your experience, we use cookies. For more detailed information, please check our Cookie Policy.
Necessary cookies enable core functionality. The website cannot function properly without these cookies, and can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.