Soma, Turkey (CNN) — Turkey’s President spoke words of comfort to loved-ones of the nearly 300 miners who have died in a mine fire, a day after the Prime Minister was blasted over comments seen as insensitive.
The deadly mine fire in Turkey is a “sorrow for the whole Turkish nation,” President Abdullah Gul told reporters Thursday. He offered his condolences to the victims’ families.
Onlookers listened silently until a man interrupted Gul with shouts: “Please, president! Help us, please!” An investigation into the deadly Turkey mine disaster has begun, Gul said. “I’m sure this will shed light” on what regulations are needed. “Whatever is necessary will be done,” he said.
He commended mining as a precious profession. “There’s no doubt that mining and working … to earn your bread underground perhaps is the most sacred” of undertakings, he told reporters. Gul had entered the mine site with an entourage of many dozens of people — mostly men in dark suits — walking through a crowd of rescue workers who were standing behind loosely assembled police barricades.
Resigned boredom marked the workers’ faces after they had stood and sat outside the mine for hours, idle and waiting. Some of them had passed the time talking on cell phones, others smoking or taking off their hard hats and burying their faces in their hands.
With hope of finding survivors nearly gone, it appeared there was little they could do.
At the mine, there was little sign of the anger that is rife in Turkey over the accident. Unions have called for strikes across the country Thursday.
Rage at Prime Minister
A day earlier, the Prime Minister gave a speech in Soma that drew scathing criticism.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan glazed over mine safety when he spoke to relatives of dead and injured miners Wednesday, describing the carnage they had suffered as par for the course in their dangerous business.
He rattled off a string of horrible past accidents, even going back to an example from 19th-century Britain.
As he took a stroll through the city, onlookers showered him with deafening jeers as well as chants of “Resign Prime Minister!”
Hundreds took to the streets in anti-government protests in Istanbul and Ankara, with police answering in some cases with water cannons and tear gas.
In the nation’s capital of Ankara, some left black coffins in front of the Energy Ministry and the Labor and Social Security ministry buildings.
More bodies
Rescue and recovery workers retrieved more bodies Thursday from the smoldering coal mine in Soma, western Turkey, bringing the tally to 282 dead so far.
The bodies of nearly 200 miners who were trapped in the burning shaft nearly a mile underground have been returned to their families.
The mood at the mine was equally sullen the day before, but every so often, the grief came out loud and clear.
“Enough, for the life for me!” yelled one woman — her arms flailing, tears running down her cheeks. “Let this mine take my life, too!”
Rescuers saved at least 88 miners in the frantic moments after a power transformer blew up Tuesday during a shift change at the mine, sparking a choking fire deep inside.
For the rest of this article and a news report, click here: http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/15/world/europe/turkey-mine-accident/