Turkish : The death toll in a coal mine explosion in northern Turkey has risen to 28 and efforts are on to rescue those trapped in the mine as it caught fire. The explosion took place at 6.45 pm on Friday at the state-run TTK Amasara Musesse Mudurlugu mine in the city of Amasara in the Black Sea province of Bartin.
110 workers were working in the mine at the time of the blast. Energy Minister Fateh Darmaz said efforts were being made to rescue 15 people, most of them trapped in the gallery of the mine where the fire is still on. “It is not a huge fire but to get there safely, the fire and carbon monoxide gas will have to be put out,” he told reporters at the scene. Dermaz said four or five other workers were trapped in the submerged mine. The minister had earlier said that preliminary investigations suggest that the blast was caused by inflammable gases found in the coal mines.
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Health Minister Fahrettin Koca tweeted that 28 workers had died and 11 rescued workers were admitted to hospitals in Bartin and Istanbul. Interior Minister Suleiman Soylu said that 58 people have been rescued safely. Turkey’s disaster management agency said ambulances were standing at the scene and rescue teams were dispatched to the area. Significantly, the country’s worst mine disaster occurred in 2014 when a total fire in a coal mine in Soma city killed 301 people. (agency)