Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya on Wednesday announced the arrest of nine people, including a hotel owner, in connection with the deadly fire at a ski resort in the west of the country that killed 76 people and injured dozens more.

Yerlikaya said the bodies of 45 victims had been handed over to their families, while DNA tests to identify the remaining bodies were being carried out at the forensic institute, according to Reuters.

The fire broke out at the Grand Kartal Hotel in the Kartalkaya ski resort in the Bolu mountains. The 12-storey hotel, which had 238 registered guests, went up in flames after a fire broke out on the restaurant floor at around 3.30am on Tuesday morning.