At least 10 workers were killed and 15 people were hospitalized on Monday after an explosion ripped through an iron and steel plant in the western Turkish province of İzmir, Governor Süleyman Elban said.
The blast struck the HABAŞ plant in Aliağa, an industrial district about 60 kilometers north of İzmir, triggering a fire and leaving workers trapped beneath debris.
The governor’s office initially reported three deaths, 14 injuries and 10 people trapped under the rubble. It later raised the death toll to six after one injured person died in the hospital and two others were found dead from the wreckage.
Speaking at around 4:45 p.m. local time, Elban announced that the death toll had risen to 10 and that 15 people were in the hospital.
Footage from the scene showed a huge cloud of thick smoke rising above the plant as flames engulfed a tall structure.
Deniz Ülker, who was passing nearby, said the explosion felt like an earthquake.
“It felt like the ground was shifting beneath us, I thought it was an earthquake. When I looked at the factory across the street, thick black smoke was coming out. A fire broke out where the chimney was,” Ülker told the state-run Anadolu news agency.
“It was like a bomb going off,” said Turan İlbay, a truck driver at the factory who also spoke to Anadolu.
According to the governor’s preliminary assessment, the explosion occurred when an overhead crane broke loose and fell into an electric arc furnace during the casting of molten steel. An investigation has been launched into the incident.
İzmir Mayor Cemil Tugay said rescue teams were continuing efforts to remove a collapsed platform and that those affected were factory workers.
“Unfortunately, we have received preliminary information indicating a large number of deaths and injuries among people working at the factory. The exact number will become clear once the wreckage has been removed,” he wrote on X shortly before the death toll rose to six.
Interior Minister Mustafa Çiftçi said emergency crews were coordinating search, rescue and firefighting operations and that the injured had been taken to hospitals.
Labor and Social Security Minister Vedat Işıkhan said the Social Security Institution had assigned a chief inspector to investigate the incident.
The explosion follows two other reported worker deaths at the HABAŞ site in recent weeks.
The Evrensel daily reported that Eyüp Eğinli, a 20-year-old worker, died on November 5 when a heavy vehicle’s tire exploded during inflation. Another worker, 55-year-old Hakan Doğan, died after falling about eight meters on October 21.
The deaths come against a high nationwide toll of fatal work-related incidents.
At least 1,736 workers died in Turkey during the first nine months of 2026, including 226 in September, according to the Health and Safety Labor Watch (İSİG), an independent workplace safety monitoring group.
Its September report recorded eight minors among that month’s dead. At least 66 youngsters died while working in the first nine months of the year, the watchdog said.
Construction and roadwork accounted for 50 deaths in September, followed by agriculture and forestry with 45 and transportation with 28. Traffic incidents, falls from heights and crushing incidents or collapses were the leading causes.
İSİG said September marked the fifth consecutive month with more than 200 worker deaths, the first such sequence since it began publishing its reports in 2013.
The group compiles its figures from media reports and information supplied by workers, families, unions, workplace doctors and safety specialists. Its totals include informal and self-employed workers and are revised as further deaths are documented.
This article is republished from Turkish Minute.
