Coal Mine Explosion in Northern Turkey Kills Three Workers and Injures Five

A methane gas explosion inside a privately owned coal mine in northern Turkey killed three workers and injured five others on Friday, state broadcaster TRT reported, in the latest fatal accident in an industry with a long record of disasters.

The blast happened at about 10 in the morning at a mine near the town of Gelik, in the Kilimli district of Zonguldak province on the Black Sea coast, the Associated Press reported. Local authorities said the explosion was caused by firedamp, the flammable gas that builds up in coal seams.

Eight miners in the tunnel

Zonguldak governor Osman Hacibektasoglu said eight people were in the tunnel when the explosion went off. Seven were pulled out, and two of those miners died after reaching hospital. One miner remained inside, and the governor said rescuers had made contact with him and were working to bring him out.

TRT later reported that the third miner had also died in the explosion, taking the toll to three dead. Five miners were injured. Two of them suffered burns and were in serious condition. The governor said one of the seriously injured had been transferred to Ankara for treatment, and preparations were under way to move the second.

Teams from the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, AFAD, along with medical and fire crews, were sent to the mine after the emergency call. The local newspaper Pusula reported that the mine is owned by the company Demir Madencilik. An investigation has been opened into the exact cause of the blast.

A long record of mine deaths

Mine accidents are common in Turkey. The independent monitoring group Worker Health and Work Safety Assembly, known as ISIG, counted 1,267 miners killed in workplace accidents between 2013 and 2025, most of them in cave-ins and from suffocation.

The worst mining disaster in the history of Turkey came in 2014, when 301 people died in a fire inside a coal mine in the town of Soma, in western Turkey. Earlier this month, five people were killed in a coal mine collapse in the same Soma district.

Friday's explosion adds three names to that toll. Investigators now have to work out how gas built up inside the tunnel to the point where it could explode, and why the men underground had no chance to get out.

How the toll moved

The death toll moved during the morning as rescuers reached more of the tunnel. The governor first reported two miners dead and one man still trapped inside, alive and in contact with the teams above him. TRT then reported that the third miner had also died, and the injured count settled at five, two of them in serious condition.

Zonguldak sits on the Black Sea coast and is the centre of hard coal mining in Turkey. The province's mines employ thousands of men underground, and the work has always carried the risk that gas collects in the seams faster than ventilation can clear it. That risk is the one investigators will now examine first.