Death toll climbs past 230 in Turkish mining disaster
More than 230 miners died in a Turkish coal mine on May 13. Some reports have the number of fatalities as high as 238 and as many as 200 more miners were still unaccounted for as of May 14.
The mine, owned by SOMA Komur isletmeleri A.S., underwent regular inspections in the last three years, two of them this March, Turkey’s government said. Inspectors reported no violation of health and safety laws, CNN reported.
The fire started after a transformer blew up nearly 1 km below ground and so intense it prevented help from getting to the trapped miners.
The casualty toll of 238 dead by mid afternoon on Wednesday was the highest in a mining disaster since 263 workers died in a gas explosion at a mine near Zonguldak on the Black Sea in 1992, The New York Times reported.
“We are worried that this death toll will rise,” the energy minister, Taner Yildiz, had told reporters. “I have to say that our hopes are dimming in terms of the rescue efforts.”
“We are dealing with an incident that might result with the highest worker loss ever in Turkey,” Yildiz said, according to Turkish news reports. “We still want to hope that miners have found small caves to hide in to breathe and survive.”
By Wednesday, 360 workers had been brought to safety by hundreds of rescuers, including some miners who had survived the explosion, according to the semiofficial Anadolu News Agency. But some parts of the facility remained inaccessible.
