AKP government under fire over coal mine tragedy
Was the mine disaster in Turkey, which has claimed at least 283 lives, the result of flawed policies and negligent acts, or an inevitable accident?
Turkey is mourning the terrible disaster at a coal mine in the western mining town of Soma, where the death toll is approaching 300 amid fears it could eventually exceed 500. A three-day period of national mourning has been declared.
Furious protests greeted Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan when he visited Soma on May 14, with the anger spilling over across the country as dead bodies keep emerging from the mine.
The tragedy has triggered a heated debate on what caused the mayhem. Was it an inescapable accident? Or was it a combination of negligence and government policies that turned Soma into a mass grave?
Statistics compiled by the Worker Health and Safety Assembly suggest the accident is an outcome of Turkey’s chronic work safety problem. According to the figures, 1,235 workers were killed in 2013 and an additional 396 in the first four months of 2014.
