TURKISH authorities ordered the arrest today of the owner of an unlicensed mine in which three people were killed in a deadly explosion earlier this week.

A court in Zonguldak province made the ruling after the owner was detained the previous day following the incident in which Kenan Cavus, Hasan Gencturk, and Ugur Goktas died in the explosion yesterday.

Two more people — Evren Cinemre and Adem Alibas — were also injured in the blast, which is likely to have been caused by methane gas compression. Investigations are under way to discover the cause of the incident.

Turkey’s mining industry came under the spotlight in May 2014 following the country’s worst mining disaster in Soma which killed 301 people. Angry protests spread across the country and unions held a one-day general strike over mine safety, blaming privatisation for worsening conditions.

More than 3,000 workers have been killed in mining accidents in Turkey since 1941, with more than 100,000 injured over the same period. According to statistics 10.4 per cent of the country’s workplace accidents relate to mining.

Health and safety is often overlooked and poor regulation and oversight leads to the operation of large numbers of illegal, unlicensed mines. Turkey has not signed up to the International Labour Organisation’s Safety and Health in Mines Convention.

An investigation in 2014 found that more than 3,000 people, including children, were working the largely Kurdish province of Sirnak in unsanitary and dangerous conditions without basic safety equipment including helmets and gas masks.

Two miners were killed in a similar incident in the Black Sea province earlier this year.