Istanbul, 15 October 2022 (dpa/MIA) - At least 40 mine workers are dead and 11 more injured after a coal mine explosion in northern Turkey, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said on Saturday. "We have 40 martyrs ... We are sorry for our loss. May Allah give strength to our nation, miners' families and friends," Soylu told reporters at the site in the Black Sea province of Bartın. Fifty-eight others were rescued, Soylu said, adding a total of 110 workers were at the mine at the time of explosion on Friday evening. Rescue efforts have neared an end, except for the search for one missing miner some 350 metres below the surface, Energy Minister Fatih Dönmez said, holding back tears. A minor fire is still ongoing nearly 17 hours after the explosion, Dönmez added. Broadcaster NTV showed footage of grey smoke rising into the air above the mine. A suspected blast of coal mine gases occurred at around 6:15 pm (1515 GMT) on Friday at the state-run mine in Bartın's Amasra district. The exact cause of the blast was still unclear. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and opposition party leaders are expected to visit Bartın later on Saturday. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted condolences. "Sad to hear of the terrible mine explosion and loss of life in Bartin province in Türkiye. Greece is ready to send assistance immediately to help in the search for survivors." The leaders of Azerbaijan and Pakistan also shared condolences. Broadcasters showed some anxious family members of the workers, weeping in front of the Bartın hospital, some 15 kilometres from the mine. Some of the critically wounded were taken to hospitals in Istanbul and Ankara, state media said. "Everything fell apart with a huge blast. I narrowly escaped within two minutes," mine worker Aydın Kalaycı told private news agency Demirören. "We dragged dead bodies of our colleagues ... I can not explain the feeling," said another worker, his face blackened by heavy smoke. Cameras turned to a rescued mine worker late on Friday, who denied being taken to hospital and insisted returning to the site to join rescue efforts. "Leave me, I am fine, I want to go back," the worker said,. The worker returned to the site after he a brief oxygen treatment in a nearby ambulance, broadcaster HaberTürk footage showed. Teams from the Turkish Red Crescent and disaster authority AFAD joined rescue efforts. Turkey has a bleak record of mine accidents. In 2014, 301 people were killed in a coal mine blast in the Aegean province of Manisa. The Bartın mine is one of the 5 state-run coal mines in Turkey, among other private mines. Opposition parties have accused the government of ignoring a 2019 audit report that warned against the risk of an explosion at state-run mine in the Black Sea province of Amasra. The state coal mine authority rejected the allegations. On Saturday, authorities launched an investigation against 12 social media users over their alleged "provocative" posts about the blast, the police department said. Users are accused of "inciting hatred," it said on Twitter, without elaborating on the posts' content. It comes two days after Turkey passed a controversial media law, setting up punishment of up to three years in jail for spreading what the authorities consider false news. Social media users and journalists have been targeted in the past in Turkey, during crisis times, including terrorist attacks or military operations into neighbouring Syria.