Fire at hotel hosting Miss Georgia beauty pageant kills 11 people
Prime Minister vows to punish anyone responsible
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Your support makes all the difference.A fire at a luxury hotel in Georgia has killed 11 people and injured 21, officials have said.
Contestants in the Miss Georgia beauty pageant were having dinner at the Leogrand Hotel in the Black Sea resort city of Batumi when the fire broke out, Russia's TASS news agency quoted the Georgian Interior Ministry as saying.
The 20 participants fled the building using a fire escape ladder and all were unharmed, the news agency reported. At least 100 other guests and employees also escaped.
The dead have not yet been identified, but an interior ministry statement said one Iranian and 10 Georgians were killed in the fire. Earlier, officials said 12 people were dead.
Among the 21 injured was one Israeli and 12 Turkish nationals. All the wounded taken to hospital were in a stable condition, the ministry said.
The cause of the fire was not immediately clear and the Georgian Prime Minister Georgi Kvirikashvili said in a Facebook post an investigation had opened into the incident. He added that "all those who are guilty of this tragedy" would be punished.
The Prime Minister had been returning to the capital Tbilisi after an EU summit in Brussels when he heard of the fire and diverted his flight to Batumi, about 360km from the capital.
In a later statement the Prime Minister declared a national day of mourning on Monday and said flags across Georgia would be lowered.
He offered his condolences to the families of the victims and praised the emergency services.
"Firefighters were able to save more than one hundred lives in a very difficult situation. Thanks to each of them for their dedicated service," he said.
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