Coal Mine Explosion Kills Hundreds

13 May, 2014

An explosion and fire in a coal mine in western Turkey killed at least 151 miners and trapped hundreds more on Tuesday, with the death toll expected to rise in the country’s worst mining accident for more than two decades.

Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said 787 workers had been in the mine in Soma, around 120 km (75 miles) northeast of the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, when the blast occurred.

Carbon monoxide poisoning killed most of those confirmed dead, while another 76 were injured and hospitalized, he told reporters at the scene of the disaster.

Rescue workers pumped oxygen into the mine to keep those trapped by the blaze alive, as thousands of family members and fellow workers, clamoring for information, gathered outside the town’s hospital. A line of police held back the crowd as ambulances arrived.

The explosion, thought to have been caused by an electrical fault, triggered a power outage, making the elevators unusable and leaving hundreds of miners stranded some two kilometers (miles) underground.

It was not immediately clear if the fire had been isolated.

Because the explosion took place during a change in shifts, there was uncertainty about the number of miners inside, but Turkey’s disaster management agency AFAD put the figure at more than 200.

Reuters

AP

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