Turkiye steel factory blast kills 17, probe launched

The Turkiye steel factory blast killed 17 people and injured at least 12 at a steel plant in western Turkiye on Monday, November 9, 2026. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced judicial and administrative investigations into the tragedy.

Erdogan had earlier put the toll at 16 dead and 13 injured. Health Minister Kemal Memişoğlu later said one more worker who was in critical condition had died, taking the toll to 17.

Eight workers were trapped in the wreckage at the HABAS steel factory, about 60 kilometres north of the port city of Izmir, where the blast struck around midday, Izmir governor Suleyman Elban said. The blast hit at 11:46am local time, about 1:45pm in Pakistan.

Video from the scene showed thick smoke billowing into the sky as flames engulfed a tall structure at the HABAS Demir Celik plant in Aliaga.

“The circumstances surrounding this tragic incident, which has deeply saddened our nation, including how and why it happened, whether there was any negligence and who bears responsibility, will be established,” Erdogan said on television after a cabinet meeting in Ankara.

Turkiye steel factory blast caused by crane collapse

The Izmir governor said the blast happened when an overhead crane collapsed into a large industrial furnace used to cast liquid steel.

“While a boiler replacement operation was being carried out at the HABAS iron and steel factory, the overhead crane fell and landed in the arc furnace, causing an explosion in the steel mill behind it,” Elban told reporters. The governor’s office said the falling crane also damaged a natural gas line.

HABAS is privately owned and ranks among Turkiye’s biggest steel producers.

An eyewitness, Deniz Ulker, said the blast felt like an “earthquake”. “When I looked at the factory across the street, thick black smoke was coming out. A fire broke out where the chimney was,” Ulker told the Anadolu news agency. “It was like a bomb going off,” said Turan Ilbay, who works as a truck driver at the factory and also spoke to Anadolu.

Izmir mayor Cemil Tugay said on X that rescue teams were “continuing their work to remove the collapsed platform” and that those affected were factory workers.

Safety record at HABAS under scrutiny

Workers’ groups say safety problems at HABAS go back a long way. The Evrensel daily reported that at least 11 workers had died at the plant in the decade before Monday’s blast.

Turkiye’s Labour Party, a small Marxist group, said on X that workers had now died at the plant for the third time in three weeks. It said one man fell eight metres from a ladder on October 21 and died, while another was killed when a tyre he was inflating on a construction machine burst.

Two members of the leftist Aegean Workers’ Collective were arrested outside the hospital where the injured were taken, as they tried to speak about workplace safety, a group spokesman said.

“The HABAS management’s blind greed for profit has resulted in a major disaster today,” their spokesman Oktay Turk told AFP. “Those responsible for this massacre must be brought to justice,” he said, calling for the immediate release of his colleagues.

The pro-Kurdish DEM party called the disaster “unacceptable” in a statement. “The causes of the explosion, any possible negligence and lack of oversight must be revealed transparently, and no one responsible must go unpunished,” it said.

Why the blast matters beyond Turkiye

An arc furnace runs at extreme heat, and a crane collapse into it can trigger a blast in seconds. The added damage to a gas line made the scene more dangerous for rescue teams.

Turkiye is a close partner of Pakistan, and Erdogan is a familiar figure in the region’s diplomacy. He recently joined Azerbaijan’s president in vowing unity after tensions, and he has spoken out over attacks in the West Bank. The blast will test his government’s handling of workplace safety, an issue that has drawn criticism before.

Industrial disasters have also struck closer to home. A high-rise fire in Taiyuan, China, killed 14 people on the same day, and in Pakistan, work on the Tarbela T-5 hydropower project was suspended after water surged into work areas following a rock mass collapse. Each case has raised the same question: whether safety checks kept pace with the work being done.

For the families of the 16 dead, the investigations now matter most. Erdogan has promised that both the judicial and the administrative probes will establish what happened, whether there was negligence, and who bears responsibility. The results will show whether the blast was a freak failure or the outcome of a safety record that workers’ groups had been warning about for years.

Frequently asked questions

Where did the Turkiye steel factory blast happen?

At the HABAS Demir Celik steel plant in Aliaga, about 60 kilometres north of Izmir in western Turkiye.

How many people were killed and injured?

Seventeen people were killed and at least 12 were injured. Eight workers were trapped when the blast struck.

What caused the explosion?

Izmir’s governor said an overhead crane collapsed into an arc furnace during boiler replacement work. The falling crane also damaged a natural gas line.

What investigations have been ordered?

President Erdogan announced judicial and administrative investigations to establish the cause, whether there was negligence, and who bears responsibility.

Did the plant have a poor safety record?

Workers’ groups say yes. The Evrensel daily reported at least 11 workers had died at the plant over the past decade, and the Labour Party said it was the third fatal incident there in three weeks.