Photo: aokaratekin / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0
ALIAGA, Izmir, Turkey – An explosion and fire at the HABAS iron and steel plant in Aliaga, in western Turkey’s Izmir province, killed at least 10 workers on Monday, and rescuers were searching for four people believed to be under wreckage, Izmir Governor Suleyman Elban said. Reported death tolls differ, and the numbers are still changing.
The photograph shows the town of Aliaga and its industrial coast in a 2007 image. It is an archival photo, not a picture of the explosion or the HABAS plant.
Elban said in a televised update that 10 workers had died, 15 were injured, four of them seriously, and four people were believed to be under the debris. An earlier statement from the governor’s office had put the toll at three dead, 14 injured and 10 missing, which shows how quickly the figures have shifted.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking after a Cabinet meeting, said 16 people had died, two were seriously injured and 13 were hurt. That figure is higher than the governor’s and has not been reconciled with it. This report uses the governor’s numbers as the latest on-site count and treats the higher figure as an unresolved official claim.
Elban said the blast occurred at about 11:46 a.m. local time, which is 3:46 a.m. Eastern. The governor said work was under way to replace a boiler when an overhead crane fell, and the falling material dropped into an electric arc furnace, causing an explosion in the steel shop behind it. He said eight of the dead were struck or trapped by falling material and two died in hospital. The cause is the governor’s preliminary description, not a finding of investigators.
The governor said the plant was in a maintenance period rather than normal production, so about 200 people were on site instead of the 300 or more normally on that line. He said the Aliaga fire had been put out, that search teams would keep working until every part of the large site had been checked, and that prosecutors, ministries and his own office were conducting administrative and judicial investigations. He said no one had been detained yet, adding that someone probably would be.
Aliaga is an industrial district on the Aegean coast north of Izmir. What is not yet known: the final number of dead and missing, the cause of the blast, whether safety rules were broken, how much of the plant was damaged, and when production will resume. HABAS had not commented in the statements reviewed here.
JBizNews Desk | Aliaga, Turkey
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