Six dead, one injured in coal mine collapse in Turkey’s southeast

ŞIRNAK

Six miners were killed and one was injured in a mine collapse in the southeastern province of Şırnak on Oct. 17, according to preliminary reports.

The Energy Ministry announced that the mine was unregulated and had been operating without a license, causing despair among workers and their families.

Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) and the National Medical Recovery Team (UMKE) units are continuing their search and rescue efforts to reach one miner left behind in the collapse, which happened between Şırnak’s Cizre district and the Cudi Mountain.

Seven coal miners were transported to a nearby hospital on stretchers.

Gendarmerie units have taken security precautions in the district, while Şırnak Governor Mehmet Aktaş, Şırnak Police Chief Ömer Ulusoy and Şırnak Gendarmerie Chief Col. Selçuk Yıldırım came to the scene to gather information.

Accidents have beset Turkey’s mining industry in the recent years, with the most devastating incident being the death of 301 coal miners in the western district of Soma in May 2014, considered the country’s worst ever industrial accident.

On May 30, a collapse occurred in a mine run by a private firm in the Black Sea province of Zonguldak’s Kilimli district.

On June 1, search and rescue teams retrieved the bodies of two workers from a collapsed coal mine in Zonguldak after more than 30 hours, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

In October 2014, 18 miners died in a flood at a coal mine in the Ermenek district of the Central Anatolian province of Karaman.

In November 2016, 16 workers were killed in a copper mine landslide in the Şirvan district of the southeastern province of Siirt.