Turkey Steel Plant Blast Kills 17 After a Crane Collapses Into a Furnace During Maintenance

An explosion tore through the Habaş iron and steel plant in Aliağa, in Turkey’s western İzmir province, around midday on Monday, Nov. 9, killing 17 workers and injuring at least a dozen more. The Turkey steel plant explosion happened during scheduled maintenance, when an overhead crane collapsed and sent material into one of the plant’s electric arc furnaces, according to the provincial governor.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced 16 deaths after a cabinet meeting and said investigators would establish “how and why it happened, whether there was any negligence and who bears responsibility,” AFP reported. Health Minister Kemal Memişoğlu later raised the toll to 17 after a critically injured worker died.

What officials say happened

İzmir Governor Süleyman Elban said the blast occurred during a boiler replacement operation, when an overhead crane fell into a large furnace used in liquid steel casting. Labor and Social Security Minister Vedat Işıkhan said preliminary findings indicated that falling materials ruptured natural gas and oxygen pipes, causing the explosion, according to the news site Turkey Unfolding.

A worker at the plant gave AFP a different, more specific account. Yasin Çetiner, 52, said the crane rope broke and about 120 tonnes of molten steel fell onto the furnace, where water-cooled panels turned contact with the 1,800-degree metal into a hydrogen explosion. That version has not been confirmed by investigators, and an occupational safety specialist quoted by the left-wing daily Evrensel stressed that early worker accounts remain unverified.

Elban said production had been suspended for the maintenance work and that roughly 200 people were in the affected area, compared with more than 300 during normal operations. Habaş, a privately owned conglomerate and one of Turkey’s largest steel producers, said the accident took place during planned maintenance on an electric arc furnace and that it was cooperating with authorities. It declined to answer AFP’s questions.

Witnesses described a blast so strong that some thought an earthquake had struck. “The roof of the factory was literally flowing like water as it burned,” one resident told AFP.

Investigation and arrests

The Menemen chief public prosecutor’s office opened a criminal investigation with four prosecutors assigned, while the Interior Ministry sent two senior inspectors and the Labor Ministry assigned a chief inspector to look for safety violations. Five people were detained, and Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar later said detention orders had been issued for six, Turkey Unfolding reported. Three ministers said search and rescue operations had ended by Monday evening.

Işıkhan said earlier Labor Ministry inspections at the plant had not found major problems, but he did not give details.

A pattern of deaths at Habaş

Monday’s explosion was the third fatal incident at the site in less than three weeks. On Oct. 21, a 55-year-old subcontractor employee died after falling about eight meters from a ladder, and on Nov. 5 a 20-year-old subcontracted worker was killed when a heavy machinery tire exploded, according to Turkey Unfolding. Evrensel counted at least seven deaths at Habaş between 2018 and Monday, most of them subcontracted workers. In earlier incidents, about 80 tonnes of molten steel spilled into a work area in 2019, injuring 11, and a furnace explosion in September 2025 injured seven.

The pro-Kurdish DEM Party called the deaths a “workers’ massacre” and demanded that no responsible party go unpunished. Evrensel reported that riot police were deployed outside the Aliağa hospital and that the brother of one victim set himself on fire outside the factory in protest before onlookers intervened. Two members of a leftist workers’ group were detained outside the hospital while trying to read a statement, a spokesman told AFP. Labor groups called a protest in Aliağa for Tuesday evening under the slogan “Enough is enough, we do not want to die!”

What the data shows

Workplace deaths are a long-running problem in Turkey. The independent Health and Safety Labor Watch (İSİG) counted at least 2,105 work-related deaths in 2025, up from 1,897 in 2024. By The Boston Report’s calculation from those figures, that is 208 more deaths, an increase of about 11%, and an average of nearly six deaths every day of the year. İSİG said 2025 was the highest annual total in at least a decade and included 94 children.

Monday’s toll alone equals roughly three days of the national average in 2025, concentrated in a single plant. Aliağa, about 60 kilometers north of İzmir, is one of Turkey’s main industrial and shipbreaking hubs. The disaster comes the same day Turkey opened the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, putting heavy industry in the spotlight while delegates debate electrification. For more international news, follow our world coverage.

What comes next

Prosecutors are expected to focus on how the crane failed, where gas and oxygen lines were placed, and whether emergency shutdown systems worked. DEM co-chair Tülay Hatimoğulları planned to visit the site on Tuesday morning. The findings will determine whether the detained suspects face charges and whether regulators tighten oversight of maintenance work at heavy plants.

Sources

• BBC News: Turkey steel factory blast kills at least 17 people
• France 24 / AFP: Anger as 17 killed in Turkey steel factory blast
• Turkey Unfolding: Death toll from steel plant explosion in Turkey rises to 17
• Stockholm Center for Freedom: Over 2,000 workers died in occupational accidents in Turkey in 2025 (İSİG)