SAVASTEPE, Turkey — Government and company officials denied Friday that negligence caused Turkey’s worst mining disaster, as opposition lawmakers raised questions about oversight and a survivor said safety inspectors never visited the lower reaches of the mine.
Anger continued to surge in the wake of the coal mine inferno in the western town of Soma that has killed at least 298 miners. On Friday, police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse rock-throwing protesters in Soma, where about 1,500 demonstrators urged Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government to resign.
In Istanbul, police forcefully broke up a crowd of about 150 people who lit candles and lined up mining helmets on the ground to honor the victims of the disaster, the DHA news agency reported.
Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said at least 298 people died in Tuesday’s tragedy. Another two or three people are believed to be missing underground while 485 miners escaped or were rescued.
Protesting workers have described the disaster as murder, not an accident, because of what they call flawed safety conditions at that mine and others in the country.
Erdal Bicak, 24, said he had just ended his shift Tuesday and was making his way to the surface when mine managers ordered him back down because of a problem.
“The company is guilty,” Bicak said, adding that managers had machines that measure methane gas levels. “The new gas levels had gotten too high and they didn’t tell us in time.”
The government has asked for a parliamentary inquiry into the disaster to find out what happened and why — but it appeared that officials had already made up their minds Friday.
“There’s no negligence with respect to this incident,” insisted Huseyin Celik, a deputy leader of the ruling party. He said the mine in Soma “was inspected vigorously 11 times since 2009.”
“Let’s learn from this pain and rectify our mistakes,” he said. “(But) this is not the time to look for a scapegoat.”
Bicak, however, said the last inspection at the Soma mine was six months before the disaster. He said the inspectors only visit the top 100 yards of the mine and the managers knew that. So, the managers would clean up the top part of the mine and the inspectors never saw what was below, he said.
The miner said the pathways are really narrow and steep down below, and the ceilings are so low miners can’t stand up, he said, adding that’s why it was so hard to get out and that was what the inspectors weren’t seeing.
But Akin Celik, the Soma mining company’s operations manager, echoed the government’s argument.
“There’s no negligence with respect to this incident. We all worked with all our heart and soul. I have not seen anything like this in 20 years,” he told reporters.
