ISTANBUL: After a methane explosion at a coal mine in northern Turkey killed at least 28 people and buried dozens of others hundreds of metres underground, rescuers urgently looked for signs of life on Saturday.
After one of Turkey’s deadliest industrial accidents in years struck Friday at dusk, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca tweeted that 11 other people who were hauled out alive were being treated in hospitals. This brought the death toll up to date.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu previously told reporters, after hurriedly travelling to the small coal mining village of Amasra on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, “We are confronting a genuinely terrible scenario.””110 of our brethren were employed in all (underground). Some of them managed to escape on their own, while others required assistance.”
Almost 50 miners were still believed to be trapped in two different locations between 300 and 350 metres (985 to 1,150 feet) below ground, according to early accounts confirmed by Soylu.
Television footage showed masses of worried people, some of whom had tears in their eyes, gathered around a damaged white building close to the pit entrance in quest of information for their relatives and loved ones.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, announced he will cancel all other plans and travel to the accident site on Saturday.In a tweet, Erdogan stated, “Our prayer is that the death toll won’t increase further and that our miners will be discovered alive.””This is where all of our efforts are going.
The majority of the first information of individuals trapped inside was provided by employees who were able to escape relatively unscathed. Recai Cakir, the mayor of Amasra, however, claimed that several of the survivors had “severe injuries.”The explosion happened just before dusk, and the darkness complicated the rescue operation.
