Mine disaster highlights unrest in Turkey

AS RESCUE crews race to find survivors of the an explosion in a Turkish coal mine, which has already killed at least 245 workers, recriminations and analysis has already started.

Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz has confirmed that 787 people were inside the mine in Soma, located approximately 155 miles south of Istanbul, as workers were in the process of changing shifts at the time of the explosion. So far more than 360 have been rescued.

With rescuers attempting to locate further survivors buried in excess of 400 metres below the surface protestors have already started calling for the government to resign over the incident.

According to reports from Turkey’s Labour and Social Security Ministry the mine was given a clean safety inspection in March, having already been inspected four previous times since 2012, despite calls by opposition parties for further investigation following a number of smaller scale incidents sites around the coal mining region of Soma.

Several unions have already announced planned strike action if the government does not take immediate action, while demonstrators have gathered outside the headquarters of the mine.

Union organiser Ercan Akkaya was reported by NBC news as saying: “This was not an accident, it happened because not enough is ever done to protect workers.”

Protesters have broken out across Turkey after it was revealed that the mine had passed its safety tests despite a number of incidents involving loss of life already taking place. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was pelted with rocks while speaking to the press, while protesters should “murdered” and called for his resignation.

Police fired tear gas and used water cannons against protestors outside the headquarters of the ruling AKP party. While another group in Istanbul’s Kadikoy district lit candles and shouted: “We will burn the murderers with the same coals that swallowed the miners.”

The explosion is just the latest in a string of safety concerns facing the country, despite revised workplace safety regulations being announced two years ago. Statistics have demonstrated that Turkey is the most dangerous country in the world for miners per ton of coal production. More than 3,000 people have been killed in Turkish mine accidents since 1941 with a report by Economy Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) in 2010 stating: “While the number of deaths per million ton of coal production is 7.22 in Turkey, it stood at 1.27 in China and 0.02 in the United States in the same year.”

The latest incident is likely to increase pressure on Prime Minister Erdogan’s embattled AKP party, which is already facing allegations of abuse of power and censorship of freedom speech, ahead of Turkey’s Presidential elections in August. What seems certain, though, is that while the search for survivors continues calls for the Prime Minister’s resignation will increase.