Türkiye: 8 people killed and injured in a mine explosion

3 workers were killed and 5 others were injured, two of them seriously, in a methane gas explosion that occurred on Friday in a coal mine belonging to a private company in the Kilimli area of ​​the city of Zonguldak in the western Black Sea in northern Turkey.

Teams from the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management (AFAD) and medical and firefighting teams were sent to the site, and the workers with serious injuries and burns were transferred to hospitals in the capital, Ankara, after receiving initial treatment at the Zonguldak Ataturk Governmental Hospital.

The governor of Zonguldak, Osman Haci Bektasoglu, said that 8 workers were in the mine at the time of the explosion, and 3 of the injured were in good condition, while two seriously injured workers were placed on artificial respirators.

Justice Minister Akin Gorlik announced, through his account in “X,” that the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in Zonguldak had begun an investigation into the explosion, and assigned the Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor and two public prosecutors to investigate the incident.

The city of Zonguldak, known for its mining activity, has witnessed a series of accidents over the past years in which dozens of miners were killed, due to explosions resulting from the accumulation of methane gas, most of which were the result of the negligence of the companies operating the mines.

The city of Manisa (western Turkey) also witnessed one of the largest disasters in 2014, where 301 workers lost their lives as a result of suffocation by carbon dioxide gas, and dozens were injured. Then 5 workers were killed in a collapse in the roof of the same mine, and two others were injured in early October of this year.

During the past few months, miners in Manisa and Zonguldam carried out marches to the capital, Ankara, and went on hunger strikes due to the companies’ delay in paying their salaries for many months.

The leader of the Turkish opposition, head of the “New Party,” Ozgur Ozil, who attaches great importance to the rights of miners, and who is also from the city of Manisa, confirmed that his party “will continue the struggle for the miners to obtain their rights.”

In a statement on his X account, Ozil offered his condolences to the families of the workers who lost their lives, saying: “We have lost many lives in the mines, and many families have been affected. We want to get rid of being a ‘country of easy death’, where avoidable accidents and work-related deaths, which have been surpassed by developed countries, still occur.”

He pledged to continue the fight for a Türkiye in which miners' safety is guaranteed and their hard work is fairly rewarded.