Turkey Steel Factory Blast Kills 17 Workers Near Izmir City

Turkey – (Special Correspondent/Web Desk) – A Turkey steel factory blast killed 17 people on Monday at a plant in the western part of the country. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the cause will be found.

The explosion happened around midday at the HABAS steel plant in Aliaga. The site is about 60 kilometres north of the port city of Izmir.

At first, Erdogan said 16 people had died and 13 others were in hospital. Two of them were in critical condition. Later, Health Minister Kemal Memisoglu said the toll had risen to 17 after one more patient died.

Izmir governor Suleyman Elban said the accident took place during a boiler replacement job. An overhead crane fell into a large furnace used to cast liquid steel.

A worker named Yasin Cetiner, 52, gave his own account. He said the crane rope snapped and about 120 tonnes of molten steel dropped onto the furnace. Water-cooled panels inside caused a huge blast when the hot metal touched them.

A local woman, Deniz Ulker, said the sound felt like an earthquake. She said the factory roof seemed to flow like water as it burned.

Erdogan promised answers. He said officials will find out how and why it happened, whether anyone was careless, and who is to blame.

HABAS is a privately owned company and one of the top steel makers in Turkey. Workers’ groups say its safety record is poor. A newspaper reported that at least 11 workers have died there in the past ten years.

The pro-Kurdish DEM party called the event unacceptable. It asked for a clear and open investigation, and said no guilty person should escape punishment.

The mood outside the hospital and the factory stayed tense. Police blocked access, and two members of a workers’ group were arrested while trying to speak about safety. A relative of one victim also set himself on fire in protest, but his condition was not known.

Workers have called a protest in Aliaga on Tuesday evening. Their message is simple: “Enough is enough, we do not want to die.”