Hundreds trapped in Turkey coal mine

Hundreds trapped in Turkey coal mine
At least 300 miners are trapped and 17 have been killed in coal mine explosion in western Manisa province.

At least 300 miners are trapped and 17 have been killed after an explosion caused a fire triggering a collapse at a coal mine in the western Turkish province of Manisa.

Turkey's disaster and emergency management agency said 17 people died, and about 20 had been evacuated from the site, 11 of them with injuries.

The accident occurred during a shift change, so the exact number of trapped workers was not known.

Al Jazeera's Serpil Karacan, reporting from Istanbul, said the mine employed more than 500 people and at least 200 people had finished their shift, leaving 300 still trapped at the site.

Rescuers were pumping fresh air into the mine and rescue teams from neighboring regions had rushed to the area, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz told the Associated Press news agency.

"It is a serious accident," he told reporters. "Our priority is to reach our miner brothers."

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said "evacuation efforts are under way. I hope that we are able to rescue them," in televised comments.

The rescue effort was being hampered by the fact that the mine was made up of tunnels that were kilometers long, Cengiz Ergun, the mayor of Manisa province said.

The accident which was being blamed on an electrical fault, trapped the miners some two kilometres below the surface and four kilometres from the entrance.

Accidents are common in Turkey's mining industry, which is plagued by poor safety conditions.

Turkey's worst mining disaster was a 1992 gas explosion that killed 270 workers near the Black Sea port of Zonguldak.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/05/hundreds-trapped-turkey-coal-mine-2014513152227920915.html

I'm claustrophobic, and that just horrifies me. Poor men, I hope they get them out quick.

Let's hope it's only 17 died.

Yea, as it says, Turkey has a bad mining accident record.

yeah..just so we can buy cheap coal...and have our mines shut...

victorisnotamused wrote:yeah..just so we can buy cheap coal...and have our mines shut...

True

Just got a news flash that says 151 killed

Cass wrote:Just got a news flash that says 151 killed

Oh Cass, how awful, what a terrible way to die.

victorisnotamused wrote:yeah..just so we can buy cheap coal...and have our mines shut...

Exactly. Why subsidize British Coal when we can subsidize foreign coal supplied on the back of appalling conditions for foreign workers? Cheap coal ain't cheap.

This is terrible and that death toll is shameful. Commiserations to all the families who have lost their loved one's.

Sassy wrote:

Cass wrote:Just got a news flash that says 151 killed

Oh Cass, how awful, what a terrible way to die.

Just tragic. I hope they went quickly and didn't suffer.

Me too.

And Irn, you are so right!

  ACCORDING to local TV news reports down here, (from about an hour ago) :  The shift changeover group of miners were already underground (!), when their poorly maintained transport broke down, trapping both shifts (over 700 workers..) down there...

WHILE a few have already been rescued, it also looks like many of the dead were overcome by CO poisoning early on during this disaster..

Poor safety controls and often non-regulation of such industries.

Governments often act and legislate against unions (as many members on here are often prepared to support, as well..), OH&S rules, workers' "rights", human rights; in all of these countries where we witness such large scale tragedies..

ALL SO mostly foreign-owned multinational corporations can more easily maximise their ill-gotten gains, raping the local environment and ravaging the local communities ~ for some distant countries to light and heat their homes, run their steel and aluminium smelters, tar their roads and make more tyres; all the while happily ignoring the human costs as long as the price is right.


IN many African, Middle Eastern and Asian regions, meanwhile, workers are often being exploited in near 'virtual slavery' conditions, by subsidiaries and contractors working for these very same corporations..   

AND many of these foreign mine workers are now being brought into more remote mines in many "western" and First World countries by the more unscrupulous operators (Gina Reinhart, Glencore-XStrata, etc.), by fraudulently misusing the "guest worker" (temporary 6 months contracts) legislation...  

Really awful news amd sadly news that some just won't bat an eyelid too...ironically, some of them probably with coal fires themselves.

Being taken so swiftly amd without the chance to say goodbye to loved ones...let's hope they can rest in peace , I doubt their families will be at peace.

" Turkey has one of the worst mining safety records among industrialized nations, and a local politician says that his calls for higher standards have gone ignored.

Assertions that the disaster could have been prevented are already surfacing. Turkey's main opposition party petitioned the government last October to investigate conditions at the mine, but its request was rejected just 20 days before today's accident.

“One in every three months there are accidents with deaths and injuries [at Soma],” Ozgur Ozel, a local MP for the opposition People’s Republican Party said in a statement today. “As Manisa members of parliament we are sick of attending the funerals of dead miners. Neither us nor the hearts of the families can stand this pain anymore.”

After the petition was turned down, Mr. Ozel voiced his concerns in Turkey’s National Assembly on April 30. He said that 10 safety inspections had discovered 66 infractions at the mine in recent years, but that no fines had been issued.

Politicians have often referred to these accidents as inevitable sacrifices that go with a difficult job.

In 2010, after 28 miners died at a mine near Zonguldak on the Black Sea coast, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sparked controversy by declaring that such deaths were part of the "fate" of mining communities.

“The people of the region are quite used to events like these,” he said in a speech outside the mine. “This profession has this in its destiny. The workers get into the profession knowing that these kinds of incidents may occur.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2014/0513/Turkey-coal-mine-explosion-Did-lawmaker-s-warning-go-unheeded-video

Apologies for length of post.  But very difficult to determine which par to leave out.

The disaster is even more tragic as from reading this it might have been averted.

What a horrible horrible way to die. Seems there are still loads trapped, lets hope they get to them and fast.

Sky News wrote:Rescuers are pumping oxygen into a coal mine in western Turkey as they battle to save more than 100 miners trapped underground following a blast which left at least 238 dead.

Hundreds of frantic relatives have crowded around the surface of the mine, in Soma, some 155 miles (250km) south of Istanbul, anxiously waiting for news, more than 24 hours after the disaster.

Relatives wailed as victims were pulled one by one from the mine on stretchers. Blankets were pulled away from the faces of the dead to give the jostling crowd a chance to identify their loved ones.

Several people had to be restrained as they desperately tried to climb into ambulances with the bodies.

http://news.sky.com/story/1261048/turkey-oxygen-pumped-to-trapped-miners

The news just gets worse, awful for those trapped unbearable for their families.  They must feel helpless.  Unbelievable, this is 2014 

Anger has erupted against the Turkish government after a deadly coal mine disaster in the western town of Soma.

People in Soma hurled abuse as they surrounded PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan's car during his visit to the scene of the tragedy, and protesters clashed with police in Istanbul and Ankara.

An explosion on Tuesday caused the pit to collapse, killing at least 274.

The latest rise in the death toll means it is the worst such incident in the country's history.

Rescuers are still hunting desperately for scores of miners who are missing feared dead, but Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said the mine was still on fire hampering their efforts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27415813

Just keeps going up and up.

  On the 4 p.m. radio news, just heard that the confirmed deaths are over 270 !

150 rescued yesterday; others have been confirmed alive today..

TURKISH trade unions are calling a snap 24 hour strike for tomorrow, their time...  

" the death toll at the Soma coalmine pushed towards 300, with hopes extinguished for at least 100 more miners thought to be trapped deep in the pit

Thursday 15 May 2014 16.53 BST

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/15/turkey-protests-mine-explosion-strike-soma