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| Miner Erdal Bicak, center, speaks to journalists as he joined fellow miners and their family members to commemorate the Soma mine accident victims and protest the government's labor policy in Savastepe , Turkey, late Friday, May 16, 2014. Public anger has surged in the wake of the Soma coal mine inferno that killed at least 299 miners. |
SAVASTEPE, Turkey
(AP) -- Miner Erdal Bicak believes he knows why so many of his
colleagues died in Turkey's worst mining disaster: company negligence.
And he knows one other thing - he's never going back down any mine again.
Bicak,
24, had just ended his shift Tuesday and was making his way to the
surface when managers ordered him to retreat because of a problem in the
Soma coal mine in western Turkey. Workers gathered in one area to
hastily put on gas masks.
"The company is
guilty," Bicak told The Associated Press, adding that managers had
machines that measure methane gas levels. "The new gas levels had gotten
too high and they didn't tell us in time."
The
miner also said government safety inspectors never visited the lower
reaches of the Soma mine and have no idea of how bad conditions get.
Government
and mining officials have insisted, however, that the disaster that
killed 301 workers was not due to negligence and the mine was inspected
regularly.
Akin Celik, the Soma mine's
operations manager, has said thick smoke from the underground fire
killed many miners who had no gas masks. High levels of carbon dioxide
and carbon monoxide have also been a problem for rescue workers as well.
Bicak,
whose leg was badly injured and in a cast, recounted his miraculous
escape late Friday while at a candle-lit vigil for Soma victims in the
town square of nearby Savastepe.
On Saturday,
rescue workers retrieved the bodies of the last two miners missing in
the disaster, putting the death toll at 301, Energy Minister Taner
Yildiz said.
He said 485 miners escaped or were rescued.
"Until
today we had focused on search and rescue efforts. Now we will be
focusing on investigations, on what will happen about production,"
Yildiz said.
"The true cause of the accident
will be assessed ... through different dimensions," he added. "There
will be lessons to draw for the mining world."
Public
anger has surged in the wake of the Soma coal mine fire. Police used
tear gas and water cannon Friday to disperse protesters in Soma who were
demanding that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government resign.
On
Saturday, police increased security in Soma to prevent new protests and
detained lawyers who scuffled
with police after objecting to identity
checks, NTV television reported. The lawyers came to offer legal advice
to the victims.
In Istanbul, police using
their shields and batons pushed back a small group of protesters trying
to leave some coal near a monument at the city's main square, Taksim, in
a show of solidarity with the Soma victims, the Dogan news agency
reported. Police then used tear gas and water cannon on dozens of other
protesters at Taksim and against demonstrators in Ankara, the capital.
Recalling
his ordeal, Bicak said he ended up about a kilometer (.6 miles)
underground with 150 people Tuesday afternoon when he heard an
explosion. He said they were given old oxygen masks that he thought
hadn't been checked in many years.
Bicak and a
close friend tried to make their way to an exit, but the smoke was
thick. The path was narrow and steep, with ceilings so low the miners
couldn't stand up, making it difficult to leave quickly. He and his
friend took turns slapping each other to stay conscious.
"I
told my friend `I can't go on. Leave me here. I'm going to die,'" Bicak
said. But his friend said to him,
"`No, we're getting out of here.'"
Bicak
eventually made it out of the mine with his friend - by then lapsing in
and out of consciousness. He said he lost many friends and out of the
150 miners he was working with, only 15 made it out alive.
Company
officials have claimed safety standards were high, that there were gas
sensors at "50 locations" and that all employees were provided gas
masks.
"We have brought (the mine) to the
level of one of the most advanced mines in Turkey regarding safety," Alp
Gurkan, chairman of Soma Holding, told reporters at a news conference
in Soma on Friday.
The Milliyet newspaper said
Saturday it saw a preliminary report by a mine safety expert who went
into the Soma mine that suggested smoldering coal caused the mine's roof
to collapse. The report said the tunnel's support beams were made of
wood, not metal, and there were not enough carbon monoxide sensors.
Labor
Minister Faruk Celik said investigations have been launched by both
prosecutors and officials but "there is no report that has emerged yet."
Bicak
said the last inspection at the Soma mine was six months ago. He said
mine managers know that government inspectors only visit the top 100
meters (yards) of the mine, so they just clean up that part and the
inspectors never see the narrow, steep, cramped sections below.
Mine
owners are tipped off up to a week before an inspection, said Ozgur
Ozel, an opposition lawmaker from the Soma region who has criticized the
government for not adopting the International Labor Organization's
convention on mine safety.
Bicak says his mining career is now over.
"I'm not going to be a miner anymore. God gave me a chance and now I'm done."
