Nearly 50 coal miners were trapped hundreds of meters below ground on Friday after an unexplained blast tore through a mine in northern Turkey, AFP reported.
Television images showed hundreds of people congregating around a damaged white building near the entrance to the pit, in the Black Sea town of Amasra.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan immediately dispatched his interior and energy ministers to the scene to oversee the rescue effort.
Local governor Nurtac Arslan told reporters that five people were trapped 350 meters below ground and another 44 at another location 300 meters below ground.
She said eight miners had managed to crawl out of the damaged pit on their own and were now receiving medical assistance.
The Turkish mining workers' union attributed the blast to a build-up of methane gas, but other officials have said it is premature to draw conclusions as to what caused the accident.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)