An explosion and fire in the district of Soma in Manisa province followed an electrical fault on Tuesday afternoon.
Yildiz said 363 miners out of 787 who work at the privately-owned mine have been accounted for, including those who died and the 80 people rescued with injuries - four of them in critical condition.
The explosion took place during a shift changeover, Yildiz said, heightening concerns that the death toll may rise.
Dozens of miners have been pulled from the mine as a huge rescue operation is under way, AA correspondent on the scene reports.
An exact cause of the blast has yet to be officially announced. Yildiz said the deaths were due to carbon monoxide poisoning, as he ruled out any possibility of firedamp or methane gas explosion.
President Abdullah Gul has ordered the Manisa Governor’s Office to use all means available to state officials to rescue the miners.
Prime Minister Erdogan, who has canceled a trip to Albania to pay a visit to the province, has offered condolences to the families of those who died.
Main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has also canceled all his engagements to visit the area on Wednesday.
A huge crowd of relatives of the miners continue to wait outside the mine for good news on the rescue efforts.
- 'Toughest duty'
The workers are thought to be 3.5 kilometers away from the entrance to the mine. Minister Yildiz said the fire broke out 150 meters underground.
Yildiz assured transparency over the whole incident and said the priority was to reach the trapped miners.
"Time is working against us. We are facing a great adversity," he said.
The minister said efforts continue to clean up the carbon monoxide gas inside the mine, indicating that it might cause more deaths in the meantime.
"Unfortunately, I'm carrying out one of the toughest duties for an energy minister," Yildiz said. "And I'm saying this with concern that our distress might exacerbate in the coming hours."
Yildiz's announcement raises fears this might become the biggest mining disaster in Turkish history, with hundreds of workers still stranded below the soil.
The greatest mining tragedy in Turkey occurred two decades ago in 1992, when a firedamp explosion killed 263 people. The second and third highest death tolls were in 1983 and 1990, respectively, leaving 103 and 68 dead in methane gas explosions.
More than 3,000 people have died and over 100,000 injured in mining accidents since 1941 in Turkey, government statistics agency TurkStat's figures show.
Mines and stone quarries are the most dangerous places for Turkish workers. According to data, more than 10 percent of work-related accidents in 2013 happened in the mining sector.
***22:12
Baku-APA. A fire in a coal mine in western Turkish province of Manisa on Tuesday killed three workers and trapped an unknown number, Muzaffer YurttaÅŸ, a lawmaker with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) told broadcaster CNN Türk, retracting his earlier statement that 20 bodies had been retrieved, APA reports quoting Today's Zaman.
The dead workers are believed to have died from suffocation and burns and at least another 30 workers had been taken to hospital. YurttaÅŸ said one of the wounded worker's health situation is critical.
Energy Minister Taner Yıldız said a fire, triggered by an electrical fault, erupted and that workers had been killed, but declined to say how many. He said the rescuer are pumping oxygen into the mine.
"It is a serious accident," Yıldız told reporters before leaving for Soma to oversee the rescue operation. "Our priority is to reach our miner brothers ... any figure we give could well be wrong."
The blast happened during a change in shifts, leading to uncertainty over the exact number of workers still in the mine, labour union officials said.
Nurettin Akçul, national head of the Turkish Mineworkers' Union (Maden-Ä°Åž), told CNN Türk television that an unknown number were still trapped after the blast, which he said happened around 2 km (1.3 miles) below ground.
Mehmet Bahattin Atçı, mayor of Soma, a district in Manisa, said 200-300 workers were still inside following the explosion. The head of the local fire service also told a Turkish television that around 300 workers were still trapped, but they could rescue five workers.
Mining accidents are common in Turkey, which is plagued by poor safety conditions.
Turkish President Abdullah Gül ordered Manisa governor to mobilize all resources for the rescue of the trapped workers, while Turkish army assigned a military aircraft to bring a group of experts from northern province of Zonguldak for the rescue operations.
Due to the fire, there is currently no electricity inside the coal mine and the elevator is not working. Authorities fear that the workers could be short of oxygen and constantly pump fresh air inside the mine filled with thick smoke.
***20:47
Baku-APA. One worker was killed and four others injured on Tuesday after a transformer explosion in a mineshaft in Turkey's western province of Manisa's Soma district, APA reports quoting Dogan News Agency.
Soma Governor Mehmet Bahattin Atçı told the NTV news station that an explosion caused a fire in the coal mine, killing at least three workers. Four other workers were taken to a hospital due to smoke inhaling.
The coal mine is operated by a private company in the Eynez neighborhood.
Atçı said the explosion took place 2 kilometers deep into the coal mine and that they have been successful in rescuing at least 20 workers. "I believe 200-300 workers are still trapped inside," Atçı said.
The governor spoke of "thick smoke" inside the coal mine. The electricity in the mine went off, making it difficult to conduct the rescue operation.
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