Nightmare end to surfing holiday

The hotel's floors collapsed as the fire spread throughout the building

Andy Hughes, from Harrogate in Yorkshire, was enjoying the last night of a surfing holiday when one of his friends called to say the hotel opposite where they were staying was on fire.

The 22-year-old company director rushed back from his night out to see the roof of the Penhallow Hotel in Newquay, Cornwall, ablaze.

He said his friend had seen a man jump from a window of the burning hotel moments earlier.

There was a man with blood on his shirt trying to help a man on the floor Andy Hughes

Mr Hughes described the events that ensued over the next few hours.

"There was a man with blood on his shirt trying to help a man on the ground.

"Then the ambulance arrived."

He said the man with the blood-stained shirt was one of several passers-by who tried to help people caught in the fire.

"People were saying that people had been screaming and banging on the windows on the top floor and that's when people realised and tried to rescue them."

Mr Hughes said he saw two men go into the building to try to rescue people.

"One guy came from around the back of the hotel and I had some bottles of water with me. He asked me if I could wash his hands. He was covered in blood and cuts."

Car buried

Shortly afterwards, Mr Hughes was doing the rescuing himself.

Two of his party of eight were still asleep in their hotel across the road from the Penhallow.

There were so many embers flying towards our hotel Andy Hughes

"The whole roof [of the Penhallow] was on fire and then it started spreading out of the windows that were opposite our hotel.

"There were so many embers flying towards our hotel. Then we got the call that we had to evacuate.

"I had to run upstairs and get my friends out of bed and kick down doors and stuff.

"They thought it was a joke so I showed them outside the window and the flames coming out of the other building.

"They soon got out of bed."

The three friends escaped through the back door of their hotel.

By 0330 BST, Mr Hughes and his friends, along with scores of others, were standing in the gardens of nearby houses watching the Penhallow Hotel collapse into the street.

A car belonging to Mr Hughes' friend was parked outside the hotel and is now buried in rubble.