A fire has broken out in a hotel in South Korea. At least seven people were killed and a dozen injured as guests desperately tried to escape the inferno.

Some of the victims jumped from the eighth floor onto air mattresses below, local media reported.

The cause of the fire was not immediately clear. According to authorities, the fire broke out shortly after 7:30 p.m. on the eighth floor of a nine-story hotel in the city of Bucheon.

Although firefighters were able to prevent the flames from spreading throughout the building, thick black smoke reportedly filled several floors and claimed numerous victims.

Rescue workers said they found several victims in corridors and stairwells, likely hit by smoke as they tried to escape. Foreign nationals are believed to be among the dead.

The images show smoke pouring out of an eighth-floor window, where the fire is believed to have started.

A firefighter can be seen behind a broken window, searching for missing people in the hotel

Kim In-jae, director of the Bucheon Health Bureau, said at a press conference that three of the injured victims were in serious condition.

According to official information, the hotel is a reinforced concrete building with two underground and nine above-ground floors.

It has 64 guest rooms and at the time of the fire, 27 guests were staying there, most of them reportedly in rooms on the seventh to ninth floors.

A 40-year-old guest named Seo told local media: “The alarm went off and I heard screaming, so I left the building without being able to collect my luggage.”

He claimed: “The sprinkler system wasn’t working and there was no one there to help me.”

A fire official said: “When we arrived at the scene, the fire was already full of smoke. So it took a long time to extinguish it. Many guest room doors were locked, making it difficult to rescue the guests.”

Most of the seven guests who died in the fire were found in the stairwells and corridors between the eighth and ninth floors of the hotel, Korean media reported.

Firefighters work inside the building as smoke continues to pour out of a nearby window

Three other guests were seriously injured and nine suffered minor injuries. The injured were taken to six nearby hospitals.

The fire was extinguished at 10:26 p.m., about three hours after it broke out, authorities said.

However, they warned that there could be more victims as the search of the premises continues.

More than 150 firefighters and 46 vehicles were deployed to extinguish the fire and search the hotel’s corridors and rooms for survivors.