Hundreds dead or trapped in one of Turkey’s worst mining disasters
For hours Tuesday night, stretchers filed in and out of a coal mine in the western Turkish town of Soma.
More than 200 had already been confirmed dead from carbon monoxide poisoning in one of the worst coal mine explosions in Turkey’s history — and, as the soot-streaked men were wheeled to waiting ambulances, it looked as though that number would climb even higher.
One man named Turgut Sidal, a tall, steely-eyed coal miner, stood in the throng of onlookers, as seen in video captured by Agence France-Presse.
“This isn’t something that suddenly happens,” he said. “There are people who are dying. People who are injured, and it’s all because of money. People are dying, and there’s nothing we can do about it. They send us here like lambs to the slaughter. We’re not safe doing this job.”
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But such serious accidents have happened in Turkey before. Scores were killed in 1990 in a coal mine blast, and Turkey’s worst mining disaster came in 1992 when a gas explosion killed 263 miners near the Black Sea port of Zonguldak.
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