Turkey: Coal mine explosion kills 41 in Bartin
An explosion at a Turkish coal mine killed 41 people on Friday, with the last people believed trapped either confirmed dead or rescued.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the site on Saturday, where he announced the last missing to be dead, taking the death toll to 41 people. It is the biggest mining disaster in Turkey in eight years.
"Our priority was to find the miners in the gallery. We finally reached the last one. He also died, bringing the number of deaths to 41," Erdogan said, ending rescue operations more than 20 hours after the deadly explosion.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu earlier said 58 miners had survived the blast, "either by themselves or thanks to rescuers".
Soylu said 28 people had been wounded as a result of the blast.
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The explosion took place inside a mine in Bartin province, just north of Ankara, near the Black Sea.
Officials, however, are unclear on how many people remained trapped in the mine. It is believed that 110 people were working in the mine when the explosion hit.
Authorities say early indications show the cause of the explosion may have been firedamp, a term referring to methane in coal mines.
Images posted online showed relatives of miners waiting anxiously for news of those still unaccounted for.
Rescuers sent in reinforcements from surrounding villages to help in the search and rescue. Television footage showed paramedics giving oxygen to the miners who had climbed out, then rushing them to the nearest hospitals.
The local governor said a team of more than 70 rescuers had managed to reach a point in the pit some 250 metres below the surface.
Turkey's AFAD disaster management service said the initial spark that caused the blast appeared to have come from a malfunctioning transformer. It later withdrew that report and said methane gas had ignited for "unknown reasons".
The local public prosecutor's office said it was treating the incident as an accident and launching a formal investigation.
In 2014, 301 people were killed in Turkey's worst mining disaster, in the western town of Soma.
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