Turkey: 18 miners remain trapped inside flooded mine

Eighteen miners remain trapped in a central Turkish coal mine which flooded when a water pipe inside exploded on Tuesday, Turkish official said. 

Thirty four miners were originally trapped in the flooded mine near Ermenek, a town in the Karaman province, around 400 kilometres south of Ankara, but several were freed overnight.

Relative of a trapped worker cries outside the mine in the Ermenek district (AA)

"The pump we have newly set up has began to yield result and the water level is falling. Not as quickly as we want, but it is falling," Turkey's Energy Minister Taner Yildiz, who was monitoring rescue efforts, told reporters. The country's Communications Minister Lutfi Elvan was also at the scene of the incident.

The disaster management body also said that a 225-person team, as well as two aircrafts and 20 ambulances, were on site for the search-and-rescue mission.

"Two aircraft, 20 ambulances and eight AFAD rescue vehicles continue their search-and-rescue efforts. One mobile base station has been set up at the scene and adequate food packets have also been delivered," it said.

The flooded mine comes fives months after Turkey's worst mining disaster in history with more than 300 people dying after an explosion in a coal mine in Soma.