At least 76 people were killed and 51 others injured in a fire at a ski resort hotel in Turkey's Bolu mountains on Tuesday, forcing panicked guests to jump from windows in the middle of the night.

“It was like an apocalypse. The fire engulfed the hotel immediately, like within half an hour,” said Mevlut Ozer, who witnessed the incident at the Kartalkaya ski resort in the Bolu province's Kyoroglu mountains, about 300 kilometers east of Istanbul.

Authorities said the fire started at 3:30 a.m. local time on the restaurant floor of the 12-story Grand Kartal Hotel.

Several fire trucks and ambulances surrounded the charred, wood-paneled building, white bed sheets tied together and hanging from a single upstairs window as people tried to escape.

“People all started jumping in panic. One guy jumped from the 11th floor. May God have mercy on him,” said Omer Sakrak, another witness and an employee of a neighboring hotel.

WATCH |: Eyewitnesses tell the horror of the fire.

People jumped from the windows to escape the fire in the hotel in Turkey, says the witness

At least 76 people were killed and dozens injured in a fire at a ski resort in Turkey's northwestern Bolu province on Tuesday night when panicked people jumped out of windows and tried to get down from bed sheets, a witness said.

“They tried to get down using bed sheets. The bed sheets tore when the boy tried… and unfortunately he fell on his head,” she told Reuters will burn.”

At least two of the victims died when they jumped from the building in panic, Governor Abdulaziz Aydin told the state-run Anadolu Agency earlier. Among the dead were Sozcu columnist Nedim Turkmen, his wife and two children, the newspaper reported.

The death toll was updated from 66 to 76 on Tuesday.

Witnesses report that they did not hear any alarms

Hotel guests told TV reporters they fled through smoke-filled corridors and heard no alarms.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said there were 238 guests in the hotel, which is located at the base of several ski slopes, and had burned down by noon.

“We are in deep pain,” Yerlikaya told reporters after inspecting the site.

“Because the rear of the hotel is on a slope, firefighting operations could only be carried out from the front and side facades,” he said, adding that crews began battling the mountaintop fire about 45 minutes after the first call.

WATCH |: A drone video captures the effects of the smoke.

Drone video captured the aftermath of a deadly fire at a Turkish hotel

Video provided by Reuters shows the massive emergency response after a fire broke out at a hotel in a ski resort in Turkey, killing dozens and injuring many more.

Minister of Health Kemal Memisoglu said that the condition of at least one of the wounded is serious, 17 more people received medical aid and were released.

Global Affairs Canada said it was not aware of any Canadian citizens affected by the fire.

4 people were detained, preliminary investigation is underway

An investigation is underway into the fire, which coincided with the school holidays, when many families from nearby Istanbul and Ankara travel to the Bolu mountains for skiing.

Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunç said in a post on X that the authorities arrested four people, including the owner of the hotel.

Tourism Minister Mehmed Nouri Ersoy told reporters that the hotel had passed inspections in 2021 and 2024 and that “no negative fire-related situations” had been reported by the fire department.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a national day of mourning on Wednesday. All flags of government buildings and Turkish diplomatic missions abroad will be lowered, he said.

“All necessary steps will be taken to shed light on all aspects of the incident and bring those responsible to justice,” Erdogan said in an earlier speech in Ankara.