ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -An avalanche slammed into a group of Turkish hikers on a trip to a remote mountain plateau on Sunday, dragging them more than 1,640 feet into a valley and fatally burying 10.

The members of a skiing and mountaineering club were taking part in an annual winter sports celebration on 7,200-foot Mount Zigana. Seventeen were hiking single-file when the avalanche swept into them.

“We looked up and there was nowhere to run. The snow took us and dragged us along,” 61-year-old Kasim Keles told reporters from his hospital bed.

“The snow dragged me down into a valley before it stopped,” Keles said. “My right hand was stuck beneath me, with my left hand I cleared my face; I began to breathe and called for help.”

A fellow hiker who escaped unharmed dug Keles out of the snow by hand.

Faruk Ozak, Turkey’s minister in charge of public works and housing who visited the site, said 10 hikers died on the mountain. Two of the hikers were hospitalized, while five walked away unharmed, he said.

Military and private mountain rescue teams assisted by sniffer dogs carried out a search in case others were trapped beneath the snow. Rescue workers could be seen probing with long rods and digging through several feet of snow with shovels until sunset, when the search was called off for the day.