ISTANBUL: An explosion ripped through a steel plant in western Turkey on Monday, killing 16 people, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
The explosion, apparently an industrial accident, occurred at the HABAS Demir Celik plant in Aliaga, about 60 kilometres (35 miles) north of Izmir. Erdogan's figure updated a previous toll given of 10 dead.
Izmir governor Suleyman Elban said several workers were still trapped at the HABAS steel factory about 60 kilometres (37 miles) north of the port city of Izmir where the blast occurred around midday (0900 GMT).
Footage posted from the scene showed a huge cloud of thick smoke pouring into the blue sky as flames appeared to engulf a tall structure within the HABAS Demir Celik plant in Aliaga, about 60 kilometres (35 miles) north of Izmir.
According to Izmir's governor, the blast was caused when an overhead crane collapsed into a large industrial furnace used during the liquid steel casting process.
"While a boiler replacement operation was being carried out at the HABAS iron and steel factory, the overhead crane fell and landed in the arc furnace, causing an explosion in the steel mill behind it," Elban told reporters at the scene, referring to a large electric-fuelled steelmaking furnace.
"As a result of the explosion, unfortunately 10 of our workers lost their lives ... eight others were trapped by the falling materials. We have 15 injured workers in hospital, four of whom are in critical condition."
An eyewitness, Deniz Ulker, said it felt like an "earthquake".
"When I looked at the factory across the street, thick black smoke was coming out. A fire broke out where the chimney was," Ulker told Anadolu.
"It was like a bomb going off," said Turan Ilbay, who works as a truck driver at the factory and also spoke to Anadolu.
Izmir mayor Cemil Tugay said on X that rescue teams were "continuing their work to remove the collapsed platform" and that those affected were factory workers, saying the "exact number will become clear once the wreckage has been removed".
Workers' groups pointed to what they said was a long record of safety issues at HABAS, a privately owned industrial group which is one of Turkey's largest steel producers.
Contacted by an AFP journalist, HABAS declined to answer questions.
Before Monday's explosion, the Evrensel daily said at least 11 workers had died over the past decade while working there.
Turkey's Labour Party, a small Marxist faction, said on X it was the third time in three weeks that workers had lost their lives at HABAS, with one man dying after falling eight metres (26 feet) from a ladder on October 21, while another died when a tyre he was inflating on a construction machine exploded.
Outside the hospital where the injured were taken, two representatives of the leftist Aegean Workers' Collective were arrested while trying to make a statement about workplace safety issues, a group spokesman said.
"The HABAS management’s blind greed for profit has resulted in a major disaster today," Oktay Turk told AFP.
"Those responsible for this massacre must be brought to justice," he said, calling for the immediate release of his colleagues.
The group said the same conditions had contributed to the fatalities. Of the 11 workers who lost their lives in the last 10 years, five were subcontracted and two were trainees.
"Despite being associated with worker deaths for years, HABAS has not faced any deterrent sanctions to date," it said.
