Ankara, December 12: An explosion ripped through a coal mine in northwestern Turkey, causing a cave-in and killing 19 workers, officials said on Friday.
“I have to give you the bad news. Rescue teams have reached the accident area. Unfortunately, all the workers are dead,” Labour Minister Omer Dincer said in televised remarks.
The workers were trapped at a depth of 220 to 250 metres late on Thursday in the mine near the town of Mustafakemalpasa in the province of Bursa when the explosion caused a gallery to collapse.
Bursa governor Sahabetting Harput said the cave-in came after the workers set off some dynamite, but Dincer said the cause of the explosion was not yet clear and experts would be called in to investigate.
“It was not a very powerful explosion, but the entire gallery, the fortifications totally collapsed,” he said.
Additional rescue teams were sent in from five nearby provinces, but the rescuers could not immediately enter the mine due to high concentrations of methane.
They had to wait for hours as air was pumped into the mine to dissolve the gas.
Dincer said the bodies of only two workers had been removed so far and that conditions in the collapsed gallery hampered rescue efforts.
—Agencies