ISTANBUL (AFP) — Rescuers desperately searched for signs of life on Saturday after a methane blast at a coal mine in northern Turkey killed at least 28 people and trapped dozens of others hundreds of meters underground.
Updating the death toll, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca also tweeted that 11 others pulled out alive were being treated in hospital after one of Turkey’s deadliest industrial accidents in years struck Friday at sunset.
“We are facing a truly regretful situation,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told reporters earlier after urgently flying to the small coal mining town of Amasra on Turkey’s Black Sea coast.
“In all, 110 of our brothers were working (underground). Some of them came out on their own, and some of them were rescued.”
Soylu also confirmed early reports that nearly 50 miners remained trapped in two separate areas between 300 and 350 meters below ground.
Television images showed anxious crowds — some with tears in their eyes — congregating around a damaged white building near the entrance to the pit in search of news for their friends and loved ones.
The blast occurred moments before sunset and the rescue effort was being impeded by the dark. Turkey’s Maden Is mining workers’ union attributed the blast to a build-up of methane gas.
It was not immediately clear if the rescuers would be able to come any closer to the trapped workers or what was blocking their further passage.
Turkey’s AFAD disaster management service said the initial spark that caused the blast appeared to have come from a malfunctioning transformer.