A ROMSEY woman has spoken of her horror after the Cyprus hotel she was staying in was rocked by an explosion.

Karen Dunleavey was on holiday with her husband at the Acapulco Hotel when they were woken up in the middle of the night after an explosion tore through a Turkish military base in northern Cyprus, covering the hotel with pieces of shrapnel.

A number of explosions shook the base at Catalkoy, west of the town of Kyrenia, after an arms dump caught fire on Thursday morning.

Karen said: "It was just terrifying. All we could hear was screaming and glass breaking around us and we would see flashes before we heard the banging; it sounded like someone was shooting at us.

"My husband Alex was at our hotel room door when the lock was completely blown off. We quickly got dressed because I was not going to meet my maker in a pair of flip flops and we had to run to the beach.

"We held onto each other because there were so many people running and we did not want to lose each other."

Karen, who represents Tadburn on the Romsey Town Council, added: "There were lots of people in their night clothes and one side of the hotel had their windows blown in and there was broken glass everywhere. Part of the reception was blown away as well.

"The staff directed us to the beach and after an hour we were being kept against the wall and were not allowed to move. We were sat on chair and sunbeds and were given duvet covers, because it was getting chilly at three o'clock."

"We were lucky no one was injured."

Karen and Alex were on the ground floor of the hotel facing away from the blast and are some of the only people allowed back into the block", according to Karen.

When asked what the hotel is doing now after the blast, Karen said: "Lorries arrived this morning with more windows and the staff are acting like everything is fine."

A probe has been launched to determine the cause of the blasts.