19 March 2010 / TODAY’S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL
Mine worker Hayrettin Kahraman, who was injured in a mine accident in the town of Dursunbey in Balıkesir, died at a hospital in İstanbul on Wednesday, just over three weeks after the explosion.
On Feb. 23 a methane gas explosion caused the collapse of an underground chamber in a coal mine in northwestern Turkey, killing 16 other miners. Kahraman died on Wednesday despite all efforts to save him, raising the death toll to 17.Kahraman, 42, who was undergoing treatment in the Lütfi Kırdar Kartal Research and Training Hospital, was married and the father of four children. An accident in December in the neighboring province of Bursa left 19 miners dead. Turkey’s worst mining disaster was a 1992 gas explosion that killed 270 workers near the Black Sea port of Zonguldak. Labor Minister Ömer Dinçer announced on Feb. 25 that an investigation had been launched into the Balıkesir blast. The investigation is still under way.
