17 workers have died in the explosion at the HABAŞ Demir Çelik steel plant in Aliaga, Izmir province. A fire broke out at the facility after the explosion and was later extinguished. Figures for the injured differ: the Turkish DHA news agency reports 14 injured, while international sources put the number at 12 or 13.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan initially announced that 16 people had died and 13 had been injured, two of them seriously. Later, Health Minister Kemal Memişoğlu said that one of the seriously injured people had died. As a result, the death toll rose to 17.
How the explosion happened
The incident occurred at around 11:46 a.m. local time on November 9, while maintenance work was being carried out at the plant. According to Izmir Governor Süleyman Elban, an overhead crane used to replace equipment broke and fell into the electric arc furnace.
The falling materials damaged a gas pipeline, which the governor said led to the subsequent explosion. The company said the incident occurred during scheduled maintenance, rather than during normal production operations.
About 200 people were at the plant during the maintenance work. During a regular production shift, the number of workers usually exceeded 300.
Damage and investigation
The explosion damaged the furnace area and caused part of the production structure to collapse. Rescue teams worked among the debris while firefighters brought the blaze under control. By the time the latest information was published, there had been no separate assessment of the material damage to the plant as a whole.
Judicial and administrative investigations have been launched to establish the causes of the accident, any breaches of safety regulations and responsibility for them.
“The circumstances surrounding the tragic incident will be established, including whether there were any oversights and who is responsible,” Erdoğan said after a cabinet meeting.
Turkish media report that six people have been detained in connection with the case. This information has not been confirmed with the same figure by all international sources.
Sources: apnews.com, dha.com.tr, aa.com.tr