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Miners and relatives on Saturday during the salvage work: the Court of Auditors is said to have warned of an explosion in 2019
Photo: Khalil Hamra / dpa
A massive explosion at a Turkish coal mine killed at least 40 of the 110 men who were in the mine at the time of the accident.
Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said on Saturday to journalists at the site of the state-run mine in Bartin province on the Black Sea.
69 miners survived, several of them were injured.
A miner is still missing.
Energy Minister Fatih Dönmez fought back tears when he gave the information at the scene of the accident.
Rescue workers from the Red Crescent aid organization and civil protection were about to end their search on Saturday morning.
The explosion occurred on Friday evening at a depth of around 300 meters.
The exact cause of the accident is still unclear.
Dönmez had explained that mine gas had probably exploded.
Smoke rose from the mine on Saturday.
It is assumed that it will continue to burn, reported the TV station NTV.
One of the miners, Aydın Kalaycı, described the moment of the accident to the private news agency Demirören: "Everything collapsed with a huge explosion, I was just able to escape," Kalaycı said.
"We were dragging the dead bodies of our colleagues," said another worker.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and leading representatives of the opposition parties are expected to visit the mine on Saturday.
It is about 300 kilometers northeast of the capital Ankara.
The mine is one of five state-run coal mines in Turkey alongside a number of privately owned mines.
Apparently, there was a warning of an impending disaster: The Court of Auditors is said to have pointed out the danger of a mine gas explosion in this mine as early as 2019.
This was announced by the largest opposition party, the Social Democratic CHP.
Authorities ignored the report, it said.
There have been several serious mine accidents in Turkey in recent years, partly due to inadequate safety regulations.
In 2014, an explosion at a coal mine in Manisa province in the Aegean region killed a total of 301 people.
has/dpa