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Smoke billows from a fire following an explosion at a fireworks factory outside the town of Hendek, Sakarya province, today. AP/Press Association Images
Hendek
41 people injured in explosion at fireworks factory in Turkey
Up to 200 people were inside the factory but most escaped unharmed.
FORTY-ONE PEOPLE were injured in an explosion that rocked a fireworks factory in northwestern Turkey today, a provincial governor said.
Images on television showed a dark grey plume of smoke with sparks visible, a result of fireworks going off inside the building in the district of Hendek in Sakarya province.
“There is no loss of life, thankfully,” Sakarya governor Cetin Oktay Kaldirim tweeted.
The government’s disaster agency AFAD called the explosion an “industrial accident” on Twitter but did not give further details.
Kaldirim earlier today said up to 200 people were inside the factory, the official Anadolu news agency reported.
Hendek mayor Turgut Babaoglu told state broadcaster TRT that efforts were on to bring the situation under control.
He said many workers escaped the building during the incident.
Dozens of firefighters and rescue workers were sent after the explosion at around 8.15am Irish time.
The interior, health and labour ministers were on their way to Sakarya, Anadolu said.
The HaberTurk website reported there had been three separate explosions at the factory in 2009, 2011 and 2014. One person died in the incident in 2014, the website added.
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