By Jaime Ortega.
Thousands of Turks protested yesterday in the streets, in Soma, where the incident took place inside a coal mine. Protestors took the street of major cities, shouting ” is not an accident , but murder .” Erdogan the Turkish prime minister criticized the president of safety management for the disaster , which left at least 282 dead and dozens trapped.
People have finally gone tired of tireless days followed with miserable salaries and facilities of dubious quality. The context of the dramatic explosion Tuesday in a coal mine in the eastern district of Soma, with 274 dead, evokes the stories of Charles Dickens nineteenth century. “Some 204 miners were killed in a landslide in England in 1838 ,” recalled Prime Minister Erdogan during the Soma region- where hours slowly moved after the worst mining tragedy in the last 20 years . People are demanding resignation and claiming “These are normal things’, referring to the current tragedy , where dozens of miners have not yet been rescued.
After his words , the prime minister was booed so as to leave the place, and took refuge in a nearby supermarket .
The Labor Minister Faruk Çelik , however , denied later in the afternoon that the mine had children : ” The young man was 15 years old, and we have clarified he was 19. We are not aware of any illegal workers in the mine. ” . ” According to regulations, children under 17 cannot work in a mine ,” tells Kusku WORLD Pinar , with degree in Labor Economics and Industrial Relations.
Since privatization in 2005 , Soma Holding owns the site . Workers cited by the media network Donya explained that with the change of ownership , the number of employees per shift went from 300 to 700 without changing electrical transformation systems. Local media initially said these factors as the cause of the accident. The Turkish government announced that , at the time of the explosion, 787 miners were working.
“10-days ago workers were concerned about the conditions inside the mine . Something did not work in the mine. ” These are the words of the family of one of the dead, on the conditions of the mine hidden with anonymity . The causes of slaughter are still unclear , but according to Radikal newspaper an engineer who also wanted his name to kept secret was mentioned saying , “is not normal” that the explosion of a transformer derived on such a tragedy.
Days tirelessly with miserable salaries and facilities of dubious quality
According to survivors , the blast caused a fire inside the mine . ” Either you are hiding something or facilities were made with poor quality material ,” concludes the Radikal professional . ” The facilities spend at least two reviews per year. They have their documents in order and it says the job was top notch , “said Alp Gürkan , president of Soma Holding, yesterday afternoon .
“What is true of inspections , and the mine is not particularly old , which makes me even explain less what happened ,” laments Eliaçık . Özgür Özel , deputy of the Republican People’s Party (CHP ) , encouraged more public outrage by revealing that just 20 days before the mishap , Parliament had knocked a motion by all opposition groups to investigate safety conditions in the mine Soma.
Turkey is the third country in the world and first in Europe to have workplace accidents. So far this year, not counting the deceased in Soma, only 396 Turks were killed in their workplace . 17 of them were children , six of whom were under 14 . Rampant poverty in some corners of Turkey, especially in the southeast, force many families to their offspring to grant a salary for education.
A study by the University of Kirikkale shows that the mining sector is the most dangerous in the country, followed by metallurgy and construction. The number of accidents increased between 2004 and 2010 this year , to 14% of all accidents in the industry. And that despite the fact that the miners make up only 1.3% of the labor work state . Annually, an average of 80 miners in Turkey suffer accidents: one of 1,000 employees.
“The company did not know how many workers it had at the time of the explosion ”
The channel CNN Türk estimated that since 1941 , more than 3,000 miners lost their lives in the black bowels of the earth and about 100,000 have been injured. ” And what is worse , even hospital services in the region of Manisa , which is mining the area , were prepared for a critical tragedy.” Said Kivanç Eliaçık , responsible for international relations of the Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions (DISK ) .
In an interview to Hürriyet , in 2012 , the mine owner , Alp Gürkan , boasted of having reduced extraction costs between 130 and $ 140 per ton of coal to $ 23.8 . ” The company did not even know how many miners were working at the time of the explosion ,” criticizes Kivanç Eliaçık , responsible for international relations of the Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions (DISK ) .
According to data of the Security Commission of the Turkish Parliament , many of the employees of the mine, the company recently privatized for Soma Holding did not charge over 13 euros a day. ” A salary is so far below normal salaries in the public mining,” mentioned Pinar Kusku . ” I suspect that what happened is a result of poor working conditions suffered by miners .”
Soma was sunk in tears. Some family members were protesting the lack of coordination among government teams in the work of identifying the dead. Some residents began to dig the first hole to bury their loved ones. At least two villagers were arrested , according to some violent images , by lashing out at the street against the chief of staff.
The tense situation was echoed in major cities . Police attacked with pepper gas and pressurized water to the protesters who gathered in Istanbul’s Istiklal Street and the Middle East Technical University in Ankara.
“It is an accident, a murder ,” was the predominant cry the squad , who recovered slogans complaining of Gezi and demanded the resignation of the authorities.
