Turkish firm, govt deny negligence in mine fire

SOMA, Turkey (AP) — A Turkish mining company defended its safety record Friday and senior Turkish officials denied allegations of lax government oversight after at least 284 people died in a coal mine explosion and fire.

Eighteen miners still remain missing in the western town of Soma so the death toll from Tuesday's explosion and fire could reach 302, the country's energy minister said.

Turkey's worst mining disaster has set off a raft of protests and outrage at allegedly poor safety conditions at Turkish coal mines, at widespread corruption and at what some perceived as government indifference. "It's not an accident, it's murder," read one banner held by workers who marched through Istanbul on Thursday.

The deaths have stirred up new hostility toward Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government, which had already been sharply criticized for last summer's bloody crackdown on protesters in Istanbul's Taksim Square and this year's crackdown on social media.

Erdogan's ruling party asked Parliament to set up an inquiry into the disaster, trying to signal that authorities won't flinch from getting at the truth, but they accepted no blame on Friday.

"We have no inspection and supervision problem," insisted Huseyin Celik, a deputy leader of the ruling party who said the Soma mine "was inspected vigorously 11 times since 2009."

"There's no negligence with respect to this incident," he added.

Akin Celik, the Soma mining company's operations manager, echoed those words.

"There's no negligence. There's no negligence with respect to this incident. We all worked with all our heart and soul. I have not seen anything like this in 20 years," he told The Associated Press.

Their comments raised the question, however, of how the mine could have been checked so often and still have such a deadly explosion.

Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said that anyone found to have been negligent about safety at the mine can expect punishment.

"If they are at fault, no tolerance will be shown regardless of whether they are from the public or private sector," he said.

Yet some of the grieving, angry people who live near the mine dismissed the official line. Resident Ibrahim Ali Hasdan said he was astonished by claims that there was no negligence.

"This statement hurts people's hearts ... even a young child wouldn't be convinced by this statement," he said.

The owner of the mine, Alp Gurkan, said he had spent his own money improving standards at the mine and hoped to continue operations there after correcting any problems found by investigators.

"I am hurting inside," he told a news conference.

Celik, the ruling party deputy, urged people to move on from the disaster — comments that certainly could rankle in industrial Soma, where days of heartbreaking funerals have been held.

"Let's learn from this pain and rectify our mistakes. The private sector and the public sector will draw lessons," he said. "This is not the time to look for a scapegoat."

The chief prosecutor in the nearby city of Akhisar said prosecutors had begun interviewing some of the injured miners and other witnesses.

Celik, the mining official, said thick smoke from the underground fire cost the lives of miners who had no gas masks.

"Smoke spread very quickly. It spread instantly," he said. "The distance between where the smoke started and the exit was five minutes. Five minutes. Those who were able to put on their masks were able to go on for five minutes."

The mining company said the exact cause of the accident is still not known. Ramazan Dogru, the mine's general manager, rejected initial reports that the fire was caused by an explosion at a power distribution unit.

"It was caused by an undetermined spark," Dogru said. "We believe that the fire grew because there was an entry of clean air there."

Officials said the mine had one safe room but that was in an area no longer in production. The company was preparing to build a second safe room when the accident occurred, but Gurkan said safe rooms are required under Turkish law.

Turkey's Labor and Social Security Ministry said the mine's most recent inspection was in March, when no safety violations were detected. But Turkey's opposition party said Erdogan's ruling party had voted down a proposal to hold a parliamentary inquiry into several smaller accidents at mines around Soma.

The energy minister's comments suggested no one else was expected to come out alive from the mine.

"We believe that there are no more than 18 worker brothers inside the mine," Yildiz told reporters. He said that number is based on reports from families and the company.

"We have 284 losses, 18 brothers inside and 77 million people hurting," Yildiz said — the last figure a reference to Turkey's entire population.

Grieving relatives in Soma laid dozens of their dead to rest in mass burials this week, chanting the names of lost miners and wailing with photos of their loved ones pinned to their chests.

Funeral prayers were being held in mosques throughout Turkey for the victims. Erdogan attended one in Istanbul.