Türkiye steel factory blast kills 10

ISTANBUL: An explosion ripped through an iron and steel factory in western Türkiye on Monday (Nov 9), killing 10 people and injuring more than a dozen, authorities said.

Rescue efforts to find more people trapped under the rubble were ongoing, with no update on how many were still missing at the factory, located near the port city of Izmir.

Izmir Governor Suleyman Elban's office had initially spoken of 10 trapped and six dead.

In an update, Elban said 10 workers died in the blast and another 15 were injured, state news agency Anadolu said. Four of them were in critical condition.

Footage posted from the scene showed a huge cloud of thick smoke pouring into the blue sky as flames appeared to engulf a tall structure within the Habas Demir Celik plant in Aliaga, about 60 kilometres (35 miles) north of Izmir.

Eyewitness Deniz Ulker, who was passing nearby at the time, said it felt like an earthquake.

"It felt like the ground was shifting beneath us, I thought it was an earthquake. When I looked at the factory across the street, thick black smoke was coming out. A fire broke out where the chimney was," Ulker told Anadolu.

"It was like a bomb going off," said Turan Ilbay, who works as a truck driver at the factory and also spoke to Anadolu.

DHA news agency said initial findings suggested the blast occurred when an overhead crane collapsed into a large industrial furnace used during the liquid steel casting process.

Izmir Mayor Cemil Tugay said rescue teams were "continuing their work to remove the collapsed platform" and that those affected were factory workers.

"Unfortunately, we have received preliminary information indicating a large number of deaths and injuries among people working at the factory. The exact number will become clear once the wreckage has been removed," he said in a post on X shortly before the initial toll was given.

Two representatives of the leftist Aegean Workers' Collective were arrested outside the hospital where the injured were taken while trying to make a statement about workplace safety issues, a spokesman for the group told AFP.