Investigators look for reason behind mine explosion

On Sunday, Energy Minister Taner Yıldız announced that the remaining 10 bodies had been removed. Earlier, nine bodies had been retrieved. The rescue work was complicated by the high concentration of flammable gas inside the mine. The minister said a probe into the company and whether it was at fault would start shortly.

The explosion, believed to have been caused by methane gas, took place in a mine in the Mustafakemalpaşa district of Bursa, trapping the workers underground on Thursday evening. Minister Yıldız said the bodies would first be taken to the Mustafakemalpaşa State Hospital to undergo autopsies. Afterwards, the bodies would be delivered to the families. 

Officials said four of the workers would be buried in Bükköy, while the others would be buried in cemeteries in various area villages. 

The minister vowed to find those responsible if the investigation establishes that the explosion could have been prevented. “We are determined to go until the very end of the investigation.”

Meanwhile, the family of 23-year-old Emir Ali Turhan, one of the workers killed in the mine, in an interview published yesterday in the Milliyet daily said the young man had worked at the mine to buy himself a motorcycle. He bought the motorcycle, a red Yamaha that cost TL 3,500, which he referred to as “my dream,” a few weeks ago. His brother, Mehmet Turhan, worked four years at the mine. “I told him not to work there, that human life is not important in the mine, but he didn’t listen to me.” His father was also against Emir Ali Turhan’s work at the mine.

Cemal Umut, another worker who has been working at the mine for seven years, accused his employer of not taking necessary precautions. Unable to hold back tears for the friends he lost, Umut said the mine worked in three shifts but hired only one engineer. He also stated that those who measure gas trapped inside a mine usually were the people whose duty it was to detonate dynamite in the mine. “On the day of the explosion, Ramazan Baştepe, whose job it was to detonate the dynamite, did not know how to use a gas measurement device. There is no way he could have measured it. I was working during the first shift, and high levels of methane were reported. No dynamite should have been detonated that day.”

Meanwhile, union officials said they had been unable to reach Nurullah Ercan, head of Bükköy Mining, which owns the mine where the explosion occurred. Tevfik Güneş, from the Dev-Maden-Sen mine workers’ union, said all their efforts to reach Ercan had failed. He also said that Ercan could be seen in front of cameras when Labor Minister Ömer Dinçer gave a press statement in front of the mine on Friday. Meanwhile, some unionists claim that Ercan consistently blocked unionizing of his company’s workers by hiring subcontractors. Republican People’s Party (CHP) Bursa deputy Abdullah Özer said Ercan owned 15 mines in the area. “We found that he transferred his mines to a new person every year so he wouldn’t have to pay seniority compensation to his workers. This one that exploded is currently registered under Fahrettin Şolpan’s name.”

According to reports, the same mine that exploded had been shut down for six months at the end of an inspection earlier.

Questions about the explosion

Investigators looking into the causes of the explosion are looking for answers to a large number of questions including whether a technical team and an engineer were present at the time of the explosion and whether the necessary measurements of methane gas levels had been taken before the explosion.

According to initial official statements on Friday, the explosion caused the mine to cave in at a depth of around 220-250 meters.

Safety violations and outdated equipment have been factors in past mine accidents in Turkey. Seventeen miners were killed in a methane gas explosion at a coal mine in western Balıkesir province three years ago. In Turkey’s worst mining disaster, a gas explosion killed 270 workers near the Black Sea port of Zonguldak in 1992.