A man died today after jumping from a balcony while trying to escape a fire in a hotel at the foot of Meteora, a mountain tourist site in central Greece, Agence France-Presse reported, citing a police source quoted by BTA.
The 55-year-old man is the owner of the hotel, located in Kalambaka - a small tourist town near Meteora, where Orthodox Christian monasteries have been built, the Greek agency ANA-MPA reported, quoted by AFP.
The cause of the fire is not yet known.
The hotel was hosting about thirty people, including eight children, all of whom were successfully evacuated, according to firefighters. They added that eight of the evacuees were hospitalized with respiratory problems.
Meteora welcomes thousands of tourists every year who come to visit the monasteries, built atop cliffs and rocky peaks and included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Monks have settled on these peaks since the 11th century, and one of these monasteries served as a filming location for the James Bond film "For Your Eyes Only" in 1981, AFP noted.