Turkish Coal Mine Explosion Kills at Least 52
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KOZLU, Turkey — An explosion in a coal mine in northern Turkey killed at least 52 miners, and about 300 were still missing 10 hours after the blast, a union official said early today.
Selahaddin Burkucu, a miners union director, said 52 bodies were recovered from the 1,840-foot-deep Black Sea mine, and rescuers were struggling to reach the 300 missing miners.
“We don’t know exactly how many men were in there,” said Edip Gumustas, materials manager at the mine.
He said lethal clouds of carbon monoxide produced by the blast were slowing rescue efforts.
Just before dawn, a grim-faced group of miners watched in silence as the stiff, dust-caked bodies of some of their colleagues were lifted out of the mine shaft in Kozlu, near Zonguldak, about 170 miles northwest of Ankara.
One miners’ union official said that rescuers are expected to reach the lower parts of the mine by midday, but he held out little hope of finding many survivors.
“We fear the death toll will be high,” Gov. Nurettin Turan told the semiofficial Anatolia news agency.
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