Eight others were seriously injured after an explosion hundreds of meters underground ripped through a mine in Amasya.
An explosion inside a coal mine in northern Turkey killed at least 28 people, Turkish authorities said, as rescuers tried to pull dozens more trapped inside the mine to the surface.
The explosion occurred on Friday at the state-owned mine TTK Amasra Muessese Mudurlugu in the town of Amasra in the Black Sea coastal province of Bartin.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter on Friday that 28 people had lost their lives in the incident.
Eleven of the 58 rescued miners were still receiving treatment in hospitals, Koca said, adding that it was unclear how many people were still trapped by the explosion that occurred, as 110 people were working inside.
Energy Minister Fatih Donmez, who went to Amasra after the blast, said a preliminary assessment indicated the blast was likely caused by fire water, a reference to flammable gases found in the coal mines.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu also traveled to Amasra to coordinate the rescue operation. Soylu also would not provide a number for those still stuck.
Several rescue teams were dispatched to the area, including from neighboring provinces, Turkey’s disaster management agency AFAD said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would cancel all his other arrangements and fly to the crash site on Saturday.
“Our hope is that the loss of life will not increase further, that our miners will be found alive,” Erdogan said in a tweet.
“All our efforts are directed in this direction.”
The explosion occurred 300 meters (985 feet) below the mine entrance at around 15:15 GMT, the Bartin governor’s office said.
Television footage showed hundreds of people, some with tears in their eyes, congregating around a damaged white building near the pit’s entrance.
Earlier, Turkey’s Maden-Is mine workers’ union blamed the explosion on a build-up of methane gas, but other officials said it was premature to draw conclusions about the cause of the accident.
In Turkey’s worst mining disaster, a total of 301 people died in 2014 in a fire inside a coal mine in the western Turkish city of Soma.