Protesters clash with police in Turkey

Anti-government protesters angered by the deaths of at least 283 workers in Turkey’s worst mining disaster have clashed with police across the country.
In the western city of Izmir, about 100km from Soma, which was hit hard by Tuesday’s mine explosion, police fired tear gas and water cannon at around 20,000 protesters on Thursday.

Turkey’s four biggest unions held a one-day strike, saying workers’ lives were being jeopardised to cut costs, and demanding those responsible for the collapse of the coal mine be brought to account.

“Hundreds of our workers have been left to die from the very beginning by being forced to work in cruel production processes to achieve maximum profits,” they said in a joint statement, calling on people to wear black.

Yesterday, Turkey’s Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said that a maximum of 18 miners remain trapped underground and he expects the final death toll to be around 300.

Although he did not spell it out, Yildiz’s comments suggested that no one else was expected to come out alive from the mine.
Speaking from Soma on Thursday, Al Jazeera’s Caroline Malone said the feeling was one of helplessness and despair.

“One man who was a team leader of miners still trapped inside the mine has been on site for two days, feeling incredibly helpess after not being able to do anything,” she said.

In Izmir, the 61-year-old head of one of the main unions Kani Beko was hospitalised after violent clashes with riot police.
In Ankara, police fired tear gas and water cannon on around 200 protesters accusing the government and mining industry of negligence. Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rejected claims of government culpability, saying that “such accidents happen”.

Erdogan was forced to take refuge in a shop after a furious reaction from relatives of the victims and the missing, some of whom began kicking his vehicle.

Photographs of his adviser Yusuf Erkel kicking a protester in Soma caused outrage on social media.
Defending his actions, Erkel told Hurriyet newspaper: “He attacked and insulted me as well as the prime minister. Should I have stayed silent?”

Al Jazeera’s Anita McNaught, reporting from Istanbul, said: “Erdogan implied yesterday in his speech that this accident was just one of those things, and that mining is difficult and the industry is inherently dangerous. He rather oddly quoted figures from Victorian England on mining accidents.

“In October last year, the opposition tabled legislation to improve mining conditions in Soma, but two weeks ago the government threw it out. The public believes mining is a problem.”

President Abdullah Gul, on a visit to the mine, pledged action to prevent further such accidents.
“Whatever necessary will be done. We need to review all the regulations, like all developed countries do, so that these accidents do not happen again,” he said.

It is unclear how many workers were still trapped underground following the blast believed to have been set off by an electrical fault.
Mining operators put the figure at 90, but reports from rescue workers suggest the figure could be much higher. Most miners died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Kemal Ozkan, assistant general secretary of the international trade union federation Industrial Global Union, said the “staggering” number of fatalities made the mining disaster the worst in recent memory. — AP