Excavators dig mass graves as loudspeakers broadcast the names of the dead in Turkey, while protesters gather in major cities following the country’s deadliest industrial disaster.
As hundreds of funerals began for the 282 miners who died in the accident at Soma, Rescuers continued to race against time on Thursday to retrieve more bodies.
More than 40 hours have passed since the fire knocked out power and shut down the ventilation shafts and elevators, and both government officials and rescue workers see little chance of more survivors coming out alive.
The rescue operation was hampered as the fire inside the mine continued, making it extremely hazardous.
Explosions like this in these mines happen all the time. It’s not like these don’t happen elsewhere in the world – Tayyip Erdogan
The accident fuelled anger across a country that has seen a decade of rapid economic growth but still suffers from one of the world’s worst workplace safety records.
Furious residents broke windows at the local government offices in Soma on Wednesday and heckled Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan when he visited the site, some chanting “Erdogan resign”, while parts of the crowd lining the street booed as the prime minister walked through the town, jostling members of his entourage.
Pockets of protests erupted in Istanbul and the capital Ankara.
Mr Erdogan on Wednesday expressed his regret after visiting the site in Soma. “We as a nation of 77 million are experiencing a very great pain,” he told a news conference.
But he appeared to turn defensive when asked whether sufficient precautions had been in place. “Explosions like this in these mines happen all the time. It’s not like these don’t happen elsewhere in the world,” he said, reeling off a list of global mining accidents since 1862.
Protesters later kicked Mr Erdogan’s car as it left the area.
Opponents of Mr Erdogan – who has already faced mass protests against his rule in the past year – attacked his government for leasing mines to parts of the private sector cosy with the ruling party, accusing it of ignoring repeated warnings about their safety.
In Istanbul, police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse several thousand people, some wearing miners’ hard hats and headlamps. Police also clashed with demonstrators in the capital Ankara and there were protests in other cities.
Many took to social media to express their outrage at the government’s handling of the crisis. “Beyond ridiculous. Turkish PM cites 19th century Britain to prove mining accidents are ‘typical’,” one user wrote on Twitter.
On Thursday morning, paramilitary soldiers were trying to evacuate the site in Soma, about 300 miles south-west of Istanbul, where President Abdullah Gul was expected to visit. Energy Minister Taner Yildiz had already visited the area.
Many distressed relatives anxiously awaited news of their loved ones. One woman was looking for her grandson: “I have a grandson there, his pregnant wife will give birth in 17 days.”
The mine operator Soma Komur Isletmeleri said nearly 450 miners had been rescued and that the deaths were caused by carbon monoxide. It said the cause was not yet clear.
Initial reports suggested an electrical fault caused the blaze but Mehmet Torun, a board member and former head of the Chamber of Mining Engineers who was at the scene, said a disused coal seam had heated up, expelling carbon monoxide through the mine’s tunnels and galleries.
Trade unions in Turkey also held a one-day strike on Thursday in protest at the country’s worst ever mine disaster.
“Hundreds of our worker brothers in Soma have been left to die from the very start by being forced to work in brutal production processes in order to achieve maximum profits,” a statement from the unions said.
“We call on the working class, labourers and friends of labourers to stand up for our brothers in Soma,” it said, urging people to wear black.
The nation’s previous worst accident was in 1992, when a gas blast killed 263 workers in the Black Sea province of Zonguldak.