Turkey's Interior Minister Soylu announced on Saturday afternoon that at least 40 people died after the explosion in a coal mine. A miner is missing, eleven colleagues had suffered injuries, some of them serious. 58 more were rescued. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca had previously written on Twitter of at least 28 deaths.

More than 15 hours after the explosion, rescue workers from the Turkish aid organization Red Crescent and civil protection tried to rescue people who had been buried, as shown in pictures from the TV channel NTV. Energy Minister Fatih Dönmez said that mine gas had probably exploded in the mine, 300 kilometers northeast of the capital Ankara. However, the exact cause was still unclear. Smoke rose from the mine on Saturday. It is suspected that the fire will continue, NTV reported. The government wanted to hold a press conference on the accident on Saturday.

According to Turkey's Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, 110 workers were in the mine at around 6:15 p.m. 58 miners have been rescued so far, Anadolou quoted the minister as saying.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Twitter that he would visit the scene of the accident on Saturday to "coordinate" rescue efforts. An investigation into the incident has been launched. The main opposition party, the social-democratic CHP, said the authorities had ignored a 2019 report by the Court of Auditors warning of a risk of a mine gas explosion at the mine.

There have been several serious mine accidents in Turkey in recent years, partly due to poor safety regulations. In 2014, an explosion at a coal mine in Manisa province in the Aegean region killed a total of 301 people.