The death toll from a methane blast in a coal mine in northwest Turkey rose to 41, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, after the body of the last missing miner was found.

"Our priority was to find the miners in the gallery. We finally reached the last one. He also died, bringing the number of deaths to 41," Erdogan said, ending rescue operations more than 20 hours after the deadly explosion on Friday evening.

It is one of the country's worst industrial accidents in years. The blast ripped through the mine near the small coal mining town of Amasra on Türkiye's Black Sea coast shortly before sunset.

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Earlier the Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said: "58 miners were able to be rescued, either by themselves or thanks to rescuers."

He said 28 people had been injured as a result of the blast. Soylu had said earlier some 110 people had been underground at the time of the explosion.

Television images showed anxious crowds - some with tears in their eyes - congregating around a damaged white building near the entrance to the pit in search of news of their friends and loved ones.

Erdogan, who arrived at the scene of the accident on Saturday, earlier vowed on Twitter that the incident will be thoroughly investigated.

No definitive conclusion

Most initial information about those trapped inside was coming from workers who had managed to climb out relatively unharmed. But Amasra mayor Recai Cakir said many of those who survived had suffered "serious injuries."

Türkiye's Maden Is mining workers' union attributed the blast to a build-up of methane gas. But other officials said it was premature to draw definitive conclusions over the cause of the accident.

Emergency services sent in reinforcements from surrounding villages to help in the search and rescue. Television footage showed paramedics giving oxygen to the miners who had climbed out, then rushing them to the nearest hospitals.

The local governor said a team of more than 70 rescuers had managed to reach a point in the pit some 250 meters below. 

Türkiye's AFAD disaster management service said the initial spark that caused the blast appeared to have come from a malfunctioning transformer. It later withdrew that report and said methane gas had ignited for "unknown reasons."

The local public prosecutor's office said it was treating the incident as an accident and launching a formal investigation.

Türkiye suffered its deadliest coal mining disaster in 2014 when 301 workers died in a blast in the western town of Soma.