KARTALKAYA, Turkiye: A fire at a ski resort hotel in Turkiye’s Bolu mountains killed 76 people and injured dozens on Tuesday, forcing panicked guests to jump out of windows in the middle of the night.
“It was like the apocalypse. The flames engulfed the hotel immediately, like in half an hour,” said Mevlut Ozer, who witnessed the incident at the Kartalkaya ski resort in northwest Turkiye.
The fire began around 3:30 a.m. (0030 GMT) on the restaurant floor of the 12-story Grand Kartal Hotel, authorities said.
Several fire engines and ambulances later surrounded the charred, wood-fronted building, where white bed sheets tied together dangled from at least three upper-floor windows, showing how people tried to flee.
President Tayyip Erdogan declared Wednesday a day of national mourning after the incident.
“People all started to jump with panic. One friend jumped from the 11th floor — may God have mercy on him,” said Omer Sakrak, another witness and employee of a neighboring hotel.
“They tried to climb down using bedsheets. The bedsheets ripped as one friend tried ... and he unfortunately fell on his head,” he told Reuters. “One father was yelling about his one year-old child: ‘I will throw my child or he will burn’.”
Hotel guests told TV broadcasters they fled through smoke-filled corridors and heard no alarms.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said there had been 238 guests staying at the hotel, situated at the base of several ski slopes, which smoldered until the afternoon.
“Our pain is impossible to describe,” he said, speaking from the resort and offering condolences. Yerlikaya said the fire was out and that search efforts at the hotel had finished.
Authorities are conducting DNA tests to identify some of the bodies recovered from the scene of the fire, he added.
An investigation was underway into the fire, which happened during school holidays when many families from nearby Istanbul and Ankara head to the Bolu mountains to ski.
Police detained nine people as part of the investigation, Yerlikaya said, adding that prosecutors will shed light on the cause of the fire and people responsible will be brought to justice.
Turkish ski resort fire kills 76, guests forced to jump from windows
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Turkish ski resort fire kills 76, guests forced to jump from windows
- Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said there had been 238 guests staying at the hotel, situated at the base of several ski slopes, which smoldered until the afternoon
Israel to reopen crossing with Jordan to Gaza aid trucks Wednesday: Israeli official
- “All aid trucks destined for the Gaza Strip will proceed under escort and security ,” the official added
- Israel closed the crossing after a Jordanian truck driver shot dead an Israeli soldier and a reserve officer at the border in September
JERUSALEM: Israel will reopen the crossing on the Israeli-controlled border between Jordan and the occupied West Bank to humanitarian aid trucks destined for Gaza for the first time since late September, an Israeli official said on Tuesday.
“Following the understandings and a directive of the political echelon, starting tomorrow (Wednesday) the transfer of goods and aid from Jordan to the area of Judea and Samaria and to the Gaza Strip will be permitted through the Allenby Crossing,” an Israeli official said in a statement, using the Israeli Biblical term for the West Bank.
“All aid trucks destined for the Gaza Strip will proceed under escort and security, following a thorough security inspection,” the official added.
Israel closed the crossing, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, after a Jordanian truck driver shot dead an Israeli soldier and a reserve officer at the border in September.
The crossing in the Jordan Valley reopened to travelers a few days later, but not to humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip, devastated by more than two years of war.
Since the closure at Allenby, Jordan said it had been able to send some aid to Gaza via the Sheikh Hussein crossing, north of the West Bank.
The Allenby crossing is the only international gateway for Palestinians from the West Bank that does not require entering Israel, which has occupied the territory since 1967.
Tzav 9, an extremist Israeli right-wing activist group seeking to halt any aid arriving in Gaza so long as Israeli hostages are held in the Palestinian territory, condemned Tuesday’s announcement.
“Hamas is still on its feet and acts every day against our fighters, and the government of Israel continues to send supply trucks and treats directly to the vile murderers who murdered, beheaded, and raped on October 7,” the US-sanctioned group said in a statement.
Of the 251 people taken hostage during Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war in Gaza, all but the remains of Israeli Ran Gvili have been handed over.
Under the terms of the US-brokered ceasefire deal that entered into force on October 10, Hamas committed to returning all living and deceased hostages.
