Explosion at Izmir Steel Plant Kills at Least Six, Officials Say

Updated 20:24 UTC

The death toll from the explosion at the Habas steel plant in Aliaga has risen to 18. Search teams recovered the body of a worker who had been missing since Monday, identified in Turkish media reports as Güner Gökçe, Turkish Minute reported. Prosecutors issued detention warrants for 11 people, including Habas board chairman Mehmet Rüştü Başaran, senior managers and technical personnel at the plant, Turkish Minute and Mining.com reported. Başaran was detained in the Kartal district of Istanbul on Tuesday and was expected to be taken to Izmir for questioning. Six people had already been detained on Monday, and it was not clear whether the 11 warrants included those six. Twelve workers were injured, one of them critically. Deputy Justice Minister Can Tuncay said the victims died from severe burns. Labor groups called protests over workplace safety at the plant, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported. The earlier toll in this article was 17.

Updated 00:24 UTC

The death toll from the explosion at the Habas steel plant in Aliaga has risen to 17. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after a cabinet meeting in Ankara that 16 people had died and 13 were injured, two of them critically, CNN and Sky News reported. Health Minister Kemal Memisoglu later said a critically wounded worker had died of his injuries, raising the toll to 17, Euronews reported. Erdogan said judicial and administrative investigations would establish how the blast happened and whether there was any negligence. Governor Suleyman Elban said the blast happened at 11:46 a.m. local time during furnace replacement work, when a ceiling crane collapsed and materials fell into an electric arc furnace, damaging a natural gas line. The earlier toll in this article, given by Governor Elban on Monday afternoon, was at least 10 dead, 15 injured and four workers still missing.

Updated 14:57 UTC

The death toll from the explosion at the Habas steel plant in Aliaga has risen to at least 10, Izmir Governor Süleyman Elban announced on Monday afternoon. Fifteen people were injured and four workers were still missing, according to the governor's figures reported by The Levant Files. The Sun, citing AFP reporting from the plant, also reported at least 10 people killed and 15 injured. The earlier governor's office figures in this article put the toll at six dead, 13 injured and eight missing. Search work continued at the plant, and Justice Minister Akin Gurlek said four public prosecutors had been assigned to the investigation. Labour and Social Security Minister Vedat Isikhan said the Social Security Institution had appointed a chief inspector to examine the explosion, The Levant Files reported.

An explosion and fire at an iron and steel plant in western Turkey killed at least six workers on Monday, officials said. Thirteen workers were injured and eight were still missing hours after the blast at the Habas plant in the Aliaga district of Izmir province.

The explosion happened at around noon local time. According to initial findings shared by the Izmir governor's office, an overhead crane fell into an electric arc furnace while workers were casting liquid steel. A fire broke out after the explosion, and part of a platform inside the plant collapsed.

Toll rises through the afternoon

The first figures from the governor's office put the toll at three dead and 14 injured, with 10 workers unaccounted for. Health Minister Kemal Memisoglu had earlier announced a single death. The governor's office later raised the death toll to at least six and said 13 people were injured, several of them seriously, while eight workers remained missing under the rubble.

Firefighters and search and rescue teams were sent to the plant. Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci said emergency services were coordinating the response, and crews worked through the afternoon to clear the collapsed platform and reach the missing workers.

Izmir Mayor Cemil Tugay said everyone affected was a factory worker. He said the exact number of casualties could only be confirmed once the rubble is cleared.

Investigation opened

The governor's office said an investigation into the explosion is under way. Officials have not announced a final cause beyond the initial finding about the crane and the furnace.

The Habas plant sits in Aliaga, a port and heavy industry district north of Izmir on Turkey's Aegean coast. The plant has run electric arc furnaces since 1987 and makes steel from scrap, according to Global Energy Monitor's plant profile. The district hosts steel mills, refineries and petrochemical plants, and its factories employ thousands of workers from across the region.

Habas is also one of Turkey's main producers of industrial and medical gases, and the Aliaga complex sits among the country's busiest heavy industry sites. Turkish broadcaster NTV reported the same crane account in its bulletins, citing the governor's office figures of three dead and 10 missing. NTV and other Turkish outlets showed ambulances and fire crews moving through the plant gate as the search went on.

Rescue work at the plant continued on Monday afternoon, and officials said the search would go on until the missing workers are accounted for. The governor's office said the casualty figures could change as teams clear the rubble and reach them.