The death toll from Friday morning’s firedamp explosion at a private coal mine in the Black Sea province of Zonguldak has risen to three, after rescue teams reached the body of the miner who had remained trapped underground, Turkish media including NTV, Hürriyet and the agency İHA reported.
Earlier on Friday, officials had confirmed two deaths and said one worker was still inside the mine at Gelik, a town in the Kilimli district. Governor Osman Hacıbektaşoğlu had said rescuers had reached the trapped miner, while the local mayor said contact with him could not be established. According to the latest reports, his body was brought to the surface and taken to the morgue. His identity had not been officially released by early afternoon.
Five injured, two with severe burns
Eight workers were in the mine when the blast happened at around 10:00 local time. Five were injured. The governor said three of them were in good condition, while two suffered burns and were intubated. Health Minister Kemal Memişoğlu said one of the injured was in serious condition. The burn victims were first treated at Zonguldak Atatürk State Hospital and were being transferred to hospitals in Ankara with specialist burn units.
Interior Minister Mustafa Çiftçi described the accident as a methane flash. Firedamp (grizu in Turkish) is a methane-air mixture that builds up in coal seams and can ignite with explosive force.
Prosecutors open urgent investigation
Justice Minister Akın Gürlek said the Zonguldak Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office had launched an urgent investigation and assigned a deputy chief prosecutor and two prosecutors to the case, attributing the blast to an accumulation of methane gas. Reports name a family-run private company as the operator of the site; its licensing and the mine’s ventilation and gas monitoring are expected to be examined.
Zonguldak is Türkiye’s main hard coal basin. Alongside pits run by the state hard coal company Türkiye Taşkömürü Kurumu (TTK), whose rescue teams took part in Friday’s operation, many small private and licensed mines operate in the area, and unions have long criticised safety standards there. The country’s worst mining disaster killed 301 workers at Soma in 2014, and a 2022 firedamp blast at Amasra in neighbouring Bartın killed 43.
The accident adds to wider debate in Türkiye over inspections and building safety, following the collapse in Istanbul’s Maltepe district and the push for urban renewal. The site is far from the areas where most foreign residents live; for newcomers, Türkiye’s single emergency number is 112, as explained in our moving to Türkiye checklist.
Sources
- SON DAKİKA: Zonguldak’ta maden ocağında patlama. 3 can kaybı (NTV)
- Zonguldak’ta maden ocağında grizu patlaması: 3 işçi hayatını kaybetti, yaralılar var (Hürriyet)
- Zonguldak’ta maden ocağında grizu patlaması: 3 can kaybı, 2’si ağır 5 yaralı (BirGün)
Photo: Vitaliy Zamedyanskiy / Unsplash License, via Unsplash
