A man cries over the body of a miner being carried outside the coal mine in Soma, Turkey, Wednesday, May 14, 2014. Rescuers desperately raced against time to reach more than 200 miners still trapped underground.
At least 201 people were killed and hundreds more remained trapped underground after an explosion at a coal mine in western Turkey, the government said Wednesday, warning that rescue efforts faced a race against time.
The toll has risen rapidly since Tuesday's disaster in the province of Manisa, when a total of 787 mineworkers became trapped inside the mine.
Rescue operations continued overnight for the hundreds of people still underground. Of those rescued alive, 80 were injured, four of them seriously, said Energy Minister Taner Yildiz.
"We fear the number could rise even further because those who came to help out may be among the injured and affected by the smoke," he told reporters.
"As the time passes, we are very quickly heading to an unfavourable outcome," he added.
Here is a list of some of history's worst mine disasters:
-1942: China's northeast is the site of the world's deadliest coal mine disaster when an accident killed 1,549 miners in Japanese-occupied Manchuria during World War II.
-1906: A dust explosion in a French mine killed 1,099 workers.
-1913: The worst mining disaster in British history was when 439 miners were killed in a gas explosion at the Senghenydd colliery in South Wales.
-1960: Coalbrook, South Africa, Clydesdale Colliery mine collapse killed 437.
-1962: Disaster at the Luisenthal coal mine in Volklingen, West Germany, killed 299.
-1909: 259 men and boys were killed in one of the United States' worst coal mine disasters, at the St. Paul Coal Co. mine, Cherry, Illinois.