A huge explosion and fire at an iron and steelworks in western Turkey left six people dead Monday as rescuers searched for eight missing workers, officials said.
It said that an investigation had been launched. The fire at the HABAS plant in Aliaga, Izmir province, also injured 13 people, two of them critically, the provincial governor’s office said in a statement that updated an earlier announcement to reflect the deaths of one person in a hospital and two other people found under the debris. The governor’s office said that the blast happened around noon (0900 GMT) when an overhead crane toppled into a furnace during the casting of liquid steel.
Broadcaster NTV showed images of a large fire inside the facility and a tall column of smoke rising.
Search and rescue efforts were underway to reach the eight people trapped under the rubble, it said. Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci said that emergency teams fought the blaze while searching for casualties.
