A COUPLE from Leigh have spoken of their terror when a fire broke out at their five star hotel in Turkey.

Stephanie and Derek Barnes, both 60, were staying at the luxury Baia Lara Hotel in Antalya, last week, having booked their trip with Thomas Cook.

They were on their 10th night of a two-week holiday when the fire broke out. The couple said no smoke alarms went off, no emergency lights came on and there were no staff to direct frightened tourists to the exit.

Mrs Barnes said: “It was about midnight and suddenly all the lights went off. There had been a few power cuts while we’d been there, so we didn’t think anything of it at first. Then we heard women rushing past our room screaming ‘fire! fire!’. There were no alarms going off, but everyone was screaming and panicking.

“There were no managers or staff and we weren’t told any direction to run in.

“The fire was in a generator room, which is why the power went off, and there was thick, black smoke everywhere.”

On their way downstairs, the couple ran into many other tourists.

Mr Barnes, who is asthmatic and had trouble breathing, added: “There were children crying and being sick. We had to put clothes over our faces just to get through the lobby.

We couldn’t see anything, we just ran. Luckily, it was in the right direction to get outside.”

Mrs Barnes said it was an hour before any staff materialised to hand out bottles of water to the holidaymakers.

They were moved to a different hotel the next day, but were taken back to collect their belongings. The generator caught fire again as they waited outside for the coach to their other hotel.

A spokeswoman for Thomas Cook said: “All our guests were evacuated and moved to alternative hotels as a precautionary measure.”

She added that they immediately sent a consultant to the hotel to carry out a full and independent inspection, who had now confirmed the hotel was safe.

She said: “ The safety of our holidaymakers is always paramount.

We can confirm all of our guests who were staying at the hotel are safe and being supported by our experienced resort and welfare teams.”

The spokeswoman went on to say the cause of the fire was thought to have been a power surge to the electric generator, triggered by a power cut in the local area.

Previous audits of the hotel indicated fire safety measures were appropriate.