The death toll from a coal mine explosion in northern Turkey rose to at least 41 people, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said on Saturday. Eleven were injured and hospitalised, while 58 others managed to get out of the mine on their own or were rescued unharmed. The status of one remaining miner was unclear.

Desperate relatives waited all night in the cold outside the state-owned TTK Amasra Muessese Mudurlugu mine in the town of Amasra, in the Black Sea coastal province of Bartin, hoping for news. There were 110 miners working in the shaft when the explosion occurred on Friday evening. Energy Minister Fatih Donmez said rescue efforts were almost complete. Earlier he had said that a fire was still burning in the mine’s gallery where more than a dozen miners had been trapped. “Work to isolate and cool the fire continued,” he said.