At least 66 dead, 51 injured in fire at ski resort in northwestern Turkey

The number of dead after a fire that engulfed a hotel at a ski resort in northwestern Turkey on Tuesday rose to 66 the interior minister saidWitnesses said desperate guests had tried to escape using ropes footage showed bedsheets hanging from the windows and media reports suggest some had died after trying to jump to safetySeveral ministers have arrived at the scene at the Kartalkaya resort around 170 kilometres 100 miles northwest of the capital Ankara and officials said the fire had now been containedOur pain is great Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told reporters at Kartalkaya 66 citizens lost their lives and 51 others woundedThe blaze broke out at 327 am 0027 GMT in the 12storey Grand Kartal hotel which has wooden cladding he saidSome 238 guests were registered as staying at the hotel the minister added a peak time during a twoweek school holidayPrivate NTV broadcaster said the dead included three people who had jumped from the hotels windowsThe fire is believed to have started in the restaurant and spread quickly though it was not immediately clear what caused itPart of the structure backs onto a cliff making it harder for firefighters to tackle the blazePresident Recep Tayyip Erdogan cut short an address to his ruling AKP party congress in Ankara saying Our pain is great our heartache is greatHe said administrative and judicial investigations have been launched into the cause of the fireAll necessary steps will be taken to shed light on all aspects of the incident and to hold those responsible accountable he promisedTelevision footage showed huge plumes of smoke rising into the sky with a snowcapped mountain behind the hotelI heard screams around midnight hotel residents were shouting for help Baris Salgur who works at a nearby hotel told NTV televisionThey asked for a blanket saying they will jump We did what we could we brought rope pillows we brought a sofa Some people threw themselves once the flames approached themFootage showed the wrecked lobby of the hotel with shards of glass on the floor the reception desk and the wooden furniture inside charred blackAuthorities warned the building could collapseA survivor who managed to escape the flames told local media that no alarms rang at the hotel when the fire started complaining about the lack of any safety measures including fire stairs or smoke detectorsTourism Minister Nuri Ersoy said the hotel had two fire escapesFootage revealed hotel sheets hanging from the hotels windows indicating some tied them in order to escape the blazeJustice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said six prosecutors had been allocated to investigate the blazeThose evacuated were rehoused in nearby hotelsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever