Turkey: Search under way for 9 coal miners missing after landslide.

February 12,2011

An explosion occurred at a coal mine near the Afşin-Elbistan power plant in the southern province of Kahramanmaraş at 9:30 am Thursday. Nine workers went missing in the explosion.

This is a very large pit!

*Related Video: Link

9 missing in coal mine explosion in Kahramanmaraş

Nine workers are missing after a coal mine explosion in the southern province of Kahramanmaraş on Thursday morning.

The explosion took place at 9:30 a.m. at the Çöllolar Coal Field near the Afşin-Elbistan power plant. While five workers were rescued from the mine by search and rescue teams, no contact was established with the other miners. While officials did not mention the exact number of workers who are missing, reports said nine are missing. The missing people include two engineers, three machine operators and four workers who were reportedly working on the construction of belt tracking in the area. The same mine was the scene of an explosion earlier this month on Feb. 6, which claimed the life of one worker and injured 10 others. Family members of the mine workers rushed to the site after they heard about the mine blast. Since officials fear other explosions in the same vicinity, a large area was cordoned off and people were prevented from entering the area. Other mine workers in the area asked the officials to quicken search and rescue efforts, saying there are more workers under the ground. Elbistan District Governor Metin Maytalman, Afşin District Governor Faik Arıcan and the Elbistan branch president of the Miners’ Union (Maden-İş), İsmet Bölükbaşı, are also in the region and closely following search and rescue efforts. Helicopters were sent to the region from Malatya and Kayseri to join the search and rescue teams there. One civilian and two military helicopters have been flying over the region since the explosion. The rescued workers were taken to Afşin State Hospital for treatment. While they were found to have gone into shock due to the explosion, they were said to be in good condition.
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-235218-9-missing-in-coal-mine-explo... Nine workers are missing after a landslide at a coal mine in Kahramanmaraş. Search and rescue teams continued efforts to find the workers yesterday. Dozens of search and rescue teams continued intense efforts yesterday to find nine workers who went missing after a landslide in a coal mine in the southeastern province of Kahramanmaraş on Thursday. http://www.todayszaman.com/news-235370-search-under-way-for-9-coal-miners-missing-after-landslide.html

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Comment by Selim KARABIYIK on February 14, 2011 at 2:41am: In the video the authority says,"This is an open-mining system. The disaster happened because of landslide." This means there are no galleries under the earth in the area.

Comment by Selim KARABIYIK on February 14, 2011 at 2:27am: Yes, Khan collapses are frequent in these mining areas because of gas explosion but this is too big to be one of them: Whole area collapsed and the carriage system was destroyed as well, this is not normal.

BTW, sorry for my comment: Something happened and the text wouldn't be pasted in the box, although I tried it many times.

Comment by Starr DiGiacomo on February 14, 2011 at 2:24am: Your 2nd picture Selim, speaks volumes.

Comment by khan on February 14, 2011 at 2:22am: Yes,Selim..It looks like a stretch of the area.

Comment by Selim KARABIYIK on February 14, 2011 at 2:18am: This doesn't look like an accumulated gas explosion in galleries, but rather movements on the layers beneath the area.

Rescue work halted at site of open mine collapse in Turkey

Search and rescue operations for nine people missing after a land collapse in a coal production area in the southern province of Kahramanmaraş were halted Sunday.

The decision to halt the work was made after a large amount of water was noticed in the collapse zone. Meanwhile, large ruptures of land and methane gas leaks from these ruptures were noticed near the collapse site.

Search and rescue teams were taken out of the collapse zone, where experts doubt another collapse may occur. Technical work is continuing from the air, with the help of helicopters, in order to determine the reason for the land ruptures and the me