Coal mine collapses in northern Türkiye, killing 1 miner

A section of a coal mine collapsed in northern Türkiye on Wednesday, leaving one miner dead and injuring six others, officials said.

There were 280 workers inside the Armutcuk coal mine near the town of Ereğli in northern Zonguldak province but only four miners were working in the section that caved in, Gov. Osman Hacibektaşoğlu told.

The cause of the collapse was not immediately known.

Six of the miners were brought out with injuries and two of them were in critical condition in hospital, the governor said.

Families rushed to the entrance of the coal mine for news of their loved ones, television footage showed.

Türkiye’s worst mine disaster was in 2014, when 301 miners died after a fire erupted inside a coal mine in the town of Soma, in the west of the country. Last year, an explosion in another coal mine in northern Türkiye killed 41 people.