Five dead, 13 trapped in Turkish mine blast

A methane gas explosion ripped through a coal mine in western Turkey today, bringing down a mining shaft and killing at least five miners, authorities said.

Thirteen miners are still trapped inside the mine.

Rescue workers fighting flames, managed to enter the mine, about 20 miles from the town of Gediz in western Kutahya province, and reached the bodies of five miners, Kahraman Kocamis, an official from the local mayor’s office, said.

He said 13 workers were still trapped about 1,000 feet underground. Chances of reaching them alive were slim, he said.

Two injured miners were brought out of the mine earlier.

The government dispatched specialised mine rescue teams to Gediz and several ambulances waited outside the mine.

In 1992, in Turkey’s worst mining disaster, a gas explosion killed 270 workers near the Black Sea port city of Zonguldak.