ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- A fire raged through a copper mine in northern Turkey on Wednesday, killing 19 workers and injuring 17 others. Rescuers were searching the smoke-clogged shafts to make sure no one was left inside.
The miners were trapped nearly 500 feet beneath the surface when the blaze broke our Wednesday morning in the mine in the town of Kure, 185 miles north of the Turkish capital, Ankara.
Ilker Keremoglu, chief executive officer of STFA, an Istanbul-based company that owns the copper mine, said the fire started during welding inside.
It took rescuers four hours to douse the blaze. They needed military-issue gas masks to enter the smoke-filled mine in search of survivors, who had fled to the lower levels.
Relatives of the trapped miners waited for hours at the entrance of the mine for word of their loved ones, while ambulances and emergency vehicles drove into the hillside mine pit to pick up survivors.
Seventeen miners, some suffering from smoke inhalation, and 19 bodies were brought to the surface by rescuers, the Anatolia news agency said.
Rescuers continued searching through the mine Wednesday evening to make sure that no one was left inside.
Authorities used fans to disperse the smoke, which hampered rescue efforts, after the fire was extinguished.
Two rescuers were injured trying to reach the miners, private NTV television reported.
One of the injured miners, Ali Cinar, told Anatolia that winds blowing inside the mine fed the flames.
``I spent three hours full of fear under the ground,'' Cinar said. ``I cannot describe my happiness.''
