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An explosion and fire at a factory in western Turkey left 16 workers dead and 13 injured, including two in serious condition, as reported by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday evening following a Cabinet meeting.
Explosion at the HABAS Steel Plant
The tragic blast occurred at the HABAS steel plant situated in Aliaga, located within the port city of Izmir. Earlier in the day, officials such as Izmir Governor Suleyman Elban provided lower casualty numbers while search and rescue teams worked to find individuals potentially trapped beneath the rubble.
According to the governor, the facility’s production line was undergoing a shift change rather than active production at the time of the accident. Consequently, only around 200 workers were at the site instead of the usual 300.
An initial statement issued by the governor’s office explained that the explosion took place at approximately noon, or 09:00 GMT, when an overhead crane fell into a furnace during the casting of liquid steel. The governor’s office added that authorities had launched an official investigation into the incident.
Rescue Efforts and Official Responses
Izmir Mayor Cemil Tugay stated in a post on X that although the fire resulting from the explosion had been put out, the definitive tally of casualties would only emerge once all the debris was removed.
Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci reported that all injured individuals were transported to local hospitals and that medical professionals were closely monitoring their health status. Meanwhile, Minister of Justice Akin Gurlek announced that four public prosecutors had been designated to handle the case.
Eyewitnesses near the facility recalled the sheer power of the detonation. Nuri Ali Ulker characterized the explosion as extremely intense, telling the state-run Anadolu news agency that the ground shook. Another witness, Deniz Ulker, told the agency that the blast felt like the Earth’s crust shifting beneath them, adding that they initially thought it was an earthquake.
Background and Safety Criticism
The HABAS facility was founded in 1987 and possesses the capacity to generate 4.5 million tons of steel each year, based on information from the corporate website.
Following the disaster, Turkey’s leftist opposition party TIP strongly criticized the government, stating that the explosion exposed a total disregard for occupational health and safety standards in the country. The party characterized the event as workplace homicide. In a digital statement, TIP leader Erkan Bas argued that the ruling regime had declared war on laborers. In addition, union leader Basaran Aksu demanded the resignation of the labor minister, alleging that workers’ lives and blood were being sacrificed for financial profit.
Data from the Health and Safety Labor Watch, an independent non-governmental organization in Turkey, indicates that 226 workplace fatalities were documented nationwide in September of this year alone. For comparison, that figure represents approximately two-thirds of the total workplace deaths recorded across Germany—a nation with a comparable population size—during the entire year of 2025.
