Officials dash hopes of survival after mine fire kills 205 in Turkey

Embedded image permalink
Desperate situation: More than 200 people were dead after a transformer exploded in a mine in western Turkey yesterday. About 90 miners have been rescued, but the fates of more than 200 others were uncertain. The prime minister's office has declared three days of national mourning.
As a crowd milled around with downcast eyes outside a coal mine in western Turkey on Wednesday, a miner dashed their hopes that his co-workers still stuck inside would make it out alive.
There are 200 of them trapped in the shaft about two-thirds of a mile -- or 1 kilometer -- underground, disaster officials have said.
The miner and some friends had crawled out of the burning mine in the town of Soma on their own, he told a reporter from CNN's sister network CNN Turk.
He choked up as he said that he can't imagine anyone else having the same luck.
The fire that killed at least 205 workers after a transformer blew up, was still burning and preventing help from getting to them, Turkey's energy minister said.
Smoke rose up from openings in the ground around the mine a day after the fire broke out.
"Rescue operations will continue once smoke and CO2 levels are minimized," Taner Yildiz told reporters.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

More

Whats Hot