Police said 12 people were found dead at a ski resort in Georgia, a former Soviet country.
The bodies of 11 Indian nationals and one Georgian citizen were discovered on the second floor above an Indian restaurant in Gudauri, the country’s largest ski resort, local police said in a statement on Saturday.
According to the statement, all 12 of the people who were found dead worked in the same building.
The Indian Embassy in Tbilisi stated that it was “committed to providing all possible support” to the bereaved families and was working to return the bodies of the 11 Indian nationals.
Preliminary tests revealed no signs of violence on the bodies, police said, adding that a power generator had been installed indoors, near the bedrooms, and turned on after the power went out on Friday.
Police have launched an investigation into the incident under Article 116 of the country’s criminal code, which indicates negligent manslaughter.
Gudauri, located high in the Caucasus Mountains near the Russian border, is becoming increasingly popular among tourists as a less expensive alternative to Europe’s main resorts in the Alps. According to a local consulting firm, the Gudauri resort received over 300,000 international visitors in 2023.
The resort’s parking lot is 7,200 feet (2,195 meters) above the tops of many Alps slopes. Gudauri has 56 kilometers (35 miles) of skiable terrain, with a peak of 10,750 feet (3,277 meters).
The resort is approximately 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the capital, Tbilisi, which has been rocked by protests for weeks following the decision by the increasingly autocratic government to halt talks to join the European Union. The protests were met with a brutal police response.
On Saturday, Georgian lawmakers elected Mikheil Kavelashvili, a far-right former soccer star, as the country’s next president, escalating tensions between the Kremlin-friendly government and the pro-West opposition.