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Anger grows over mine disaster

Written by Wu Ming on . Posted in Urban Chant

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  • An injured miner came out carried by rescuers, on May 13, 2014 after an explosion in the Soma mine. (Bulent Kilic—AFP/Getty Images)
  • A miner reacts after being affected with toxic gas while searching for co-workers. (Bulent Kilic—AFP/Getty Images)
  • Miners change their clothes in an outside building after searching for hours hundreds of their co-workers. (Bulent Kilic—AFP/Getty Images)
  • Boats of miners in an outside building after searching for co-workers. (Bulent Kilic—AFP/Getty Images)
  • People dig graves for miners in a cemetery during the funeral ceremony of miners who died in the mine. (Bulent Kilic—AFP/Getty Images)
  • People mourn in a cemetery during the funeral ceremony. (Bulent Kilic—AFP/Getty Images)

As Turkey attempts to come to terms with the country’s worst industrial disaster, the mine fire that has left at least 300 people dead, the prime minister faces a growing backlash over his handling of the tragedy.

The accident outside the town of Soma has highlighted lax safety standards in the country’s coal industry and left the families of the dead miners pointing the finger of blame at Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

A failure by Erdogan’s party  to support a parliamentary motion calling on the authorities to investigate a series of mine accidents in Soma province before this week’s tragedy is adding to the political backlash…

For the Turkish prime minister, Soma has become “a multi-layered PR disaster”, said Kerem Oktem, an Oxford research fellow and analyst at the Istanbul Policy Centre. “Even his polarising rhetoric isn’t going to let him reshape the public response.”

First published in FINANCIAL TIMES

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