The explosion, believed to have been caused by methane gas, took place in a mine close to the city of Bursa, trapping the workers underground on Thursday evening. The bodies of seven miners have so far been retrieved from the mine, Dinçer said, noting that he hoped the remaining bodies would be removed from the mine before midnight on Friday.Hamza Başkurt, one of the rescue workers, said they saw bodies in the rubble but could not take them out. “It was a big explosion; this is obvious from their faces, hands and clothes,” Başkurt, appearing exhausted and with coal dust on his face, told NTV television.
Mothers and wives of the miners wept near the entrance to the mine. Gendarmes cordoned off the area and tried to calm the relatives of the missing miners. Meanwhile, the explosion sparked a debate over occupational accidents and precautions taken by companies and the state to prevent them. Reports recently released by the Ministry of Labor indicate that 98 percent of occupational accidents could have been prevented if necessary precautions had been taken. The number of accidents ending in workers’ deaths is five times higher than figures for developed countries. Furthermore, the cost of occupational accidents is TL 4.1 billion per year.
