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Coalmine disaster in Turkey


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Turkish people will hear me on this one, a coalmine "accident" just happened in Soma several days ago. (correct me if you see any information wrong)

According to the news articles, there had been an explosion in the power unit of the mine station, killing hundreds of people working in there. But there are a lot more rumors going on about this, such as there was fire in one unit, but it was covered with concrete, then there was a lot of pressure in the unit, causing an explosion.

Nearly 350 people were dead, and 400 people (last time I checked) were saved.

Another terrible rumor is, local forces will not save trapped people anymore. They will cover the fire with lye, leaving alive or dead people doomed to become coal.

The government does not have sentimental approach at all. Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says it is fate who killed those workers, and giving people examples from hundreds years earlier. Two weeks ago (before the explosion), the opposing party gave a resolution on Soma for it to be checked, but it was rejected by the government, telling that the opposing party is giving aimless resolutions to keep the agenda busy.

On top of all of this, one of PM's advisor (Yusuf Yerkel) kicked a citizen in front of public for booing PM. Here is a picture if you hadn't seen it yet.

1zyddoo.jpg

PM also punched a citizen who booed him because his father is dead in the accident, and made a press statement such as: "You get a beat if you boo this country's PM". And unfortunately, other government members support these people.

These are the details that came to my mind now. What do you think ? How does the media in your country show the disaster ? Does the media in your country shows this disaster at all ? What do you say about government's approach ? What can be done by the public to help people who lost their relatives in the explosion ?

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I have been reading about this disaster, and i feel sorry about what happened and about the families that lost the ones they love in this disaster. But from what i know is that the turkish government in really a good government it it worked hard to turn turkey into such an amazing country, even though the media tries to show another image of the government as a "bad" government. And i would like to know from you as a turkish about the government and if its as good as i think about it or its the way the media tries to show it and i think the media tries to show the bad face of the turkish government since a lot of countries want to get rid of this government!

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Here it's been on the news since it happened, and I did hear that they'd stopped looking for survivors - although it sounded like they didn't expect to find anyone at this point...? The only thing said about the government is more or less what you said - about the aide kicking a protester and it's also reported that in Turkey the people there feel Erdogan has been insensitive/not handled it well.

It's awful but by the sounds of it, it was an accident and an inherent danger of that kind of work place. I heard that the company denies negligence although obviously most companies probably would so maybe they'll turn something up. To be honest you'd hope that the company will compensate all the families who have lost loved ones. Public intervention would most logically either be campaigning for finding the rest of the bodies (if there are indeed some that haven't been found) or raising money for the people who've been left behind. Whatever seems right and appropriate on the ground, really.

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It's awful but by the sounds of it, it was an accident and an inherent danger of that kind of work place.

I did not have the chance to give you a detailed answer, in fact, I just saw your response, and I would like to respond back.

In comparison with European countries and The States, Turkey might seem like a third world country, but it has every resource and opportunity to guarantee people's life standards. But awkward enough, no one in the government does such a move, and we do not know why. A simple example, Turkey is one of the countries that has the highest child abuse rate. The government has the power to decrease this rate, such as doing further investigations and educating the police forces on the issue. However, it only gets higher, and the only thing we can do is go to the streets and protest, which they do not listen.

With the little piece of information I just gave you, I have the right to question this disaster and ask the government why it could not be stopped.

The government does not have sentimental approach at all. Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says it is fate who killed those workers, and giving people examples from hundreds years earlier. Two weeks ago (before the explosion), the opposing party gave a resolution on Soma for it to be checked, but it was rejected by the government, telling that the opposing party is giving aimless resolutions to keep the agenda busy.

For instance, someone took their time and compared the coalmine disaster rate with another country (I think it was the States, I don't really remember) and checked the precautions those coalmines took in order to prevent a collateral damage. In comparison, it is understood that Soma was simply saving money by not making the necessary checks in the mine or increase the security of the workplace. A saved miner also stated that the workers in the mine were informed before an inspection, and make the flaws look fixed, so the workplace would pass the inspection.

As you might know, Turkey is a candidate country for EU, but has to fix many standards accordingly in order to get into the union. So they have to take models from Europe. Here is a demonstration of Soma and a coalmine in Germany, whom Turkey must take models from. Maybe it cannot be as developed as the model, but it should be better than this.

2j5glee.jpg

So I don't know what English news agents are showing but this one should not be a collateral damage in a technology age like 2014.

Nice sign by the way :flirt:

Edited by Your Favorite Survivor
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