Turkish ski resort fire leaves 76 dead

ISTANBUL: At least 76 people were killed when a huge fire ripped through a hotel at a popular ski resort in northwestern Turkiye that was packed with people enjoying the winter holidays, among them families.

The blaze at the Grand Kartal Hotel in Kartalkaya broke out around 3:30 am (0030 GMT), sending huge clouds of smoke into the night air and sparking panic among the guests. Survivors and eyewitnesses spoke of scenes of desperation as people tried to flee the burning building with some leaping out of the windows or using bedsheets as a makeshift rope.

“People on the upper floors were screaming. They threw bedsheets out of the windows, some tried to jump,” Atakan Yelkovan, who escaped from the third floor with his wife, told IHA news agency.

A very shaken hotel employee, who did not give his name, said he saw guests at their windows screaming for help. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday expressed deep sorrow over the loss of precious lives in a deadly fire incident in a hotel in Turkiye. “Deeply saddened to learn of the fire in a hotel in Kartalkaya ski resort in Northern Turkiye,” the prime minister said in a post on social media platform X.