ISTANBUL (Dispatches) -- At least three people were killed and 14 injured in an explosion at a steel plant in Izmir, western Turkey, on Monday, with 10 workers still trapped under debris.
The blast occurred around midday local time at the HABAS iron and steel plant in the Aliağa district of Izmir province. According to an initial assessment by the Izmir Governor’s Office, the explosion was triggered when an overhead crane snapped and plunged into an arc furnace during a liquid steel casting process.
The governor’s office confirmed that three citizens were killed and 14 injured, three of them critically. The injured have been taken to nearby hospitals. Search and rescue teams are working continuously to reach 10 workers believed to be trapped beneath collapsed structures.
Interior Minister Mustafa Çiftçi stated on social media that all relevant units had been dispatched to the scene from the first moments of the incident, conducting search and rescue, firefighting, and response operations in coordination. He said the government was closely monitoring developments and wished a speedy recovery to the injured.
Television footage showed dense smoke billowing from the facility as a fire broke out following the blast. A large number of firefighters, medical teams, and rescue units were immediately dispatched. A witness near the factory described the explosion as “very severe,” saying “the ground shook” and that a cloud of dust and smoke emerged afterward.
Justice Minister Akın Gürlek announced that the Menemen Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office had launched an investigation and assigned four prosecutors to the case.
The incident has also drawn attention to the plant’s safety record. According to the Workers’ Health and Safety Council (İSİG), two other workers—Hakan Doğan and Eyüp Eğinli—died in work accidents at the same factory within the past two weeks. 
The Ege Workers’ Union reportedly hung a banner on the plant’s walls reading “Work murder at HABAS! Enough is enough!” in protest of the worker deaths, which was removed later in the day.
The cause of the explosion remains under investigation, and authorities have not yet released further details about the condition of the trapped workers.