The political fallout from Tuesday's mine explosion in western Turkey intensified yesterday with thousands of workers joining protest strikes and demonstraters clashing with security forces .
As the death toll at the Soma mine pushed towards 300, with more than 140 workers trapped, Turkey's president Abdullah Gul of the ruling AK Party visited the area .
The president listened as family and friends of the missing miners shouted their anger from the mine entrance, although they showed more restraint than the previous day with the country's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Countrywide anger is now directed at Mr Erdogan, whose aide, Yusef Yerkel, was photographed kicking a protester to the ground during his visit, sparking nationwide protests and almost universal condemnation by Turks on social media websites.
Overwhelming loss
The first funerals for victims were held yesterday as labourers continued to dig rows of graves in a cemetery near the mine. Women with
photographs of victims pinned to their clothing swayed, wailed and sang as coffins were lowered into the ground.
Stories from the mine added to the local community’s overwhelming sense of loss. Rescuers found a note in the hand of a dead miner that read, “Please give me your blessings, son”.
Speaking to Turkish state media, Teyfik Cucu told of how he was working as a shift supervisor in the mine when the explosion happened.
“Some were praying and others screaming. They said: ‘God, someone save me, save me.’ I told them to keep their masks, but they didn’t. You can’t [sic] see anything and therefore people were removing their masks. That’s why they were affected by the smoke. Most of them died because of this,” he said.
More than 360 miners were rescued, but no one has been found alive since dawn on Wednesday. Yesterday rescue teams recovered another eight victims, with 142 people still unaccounted for, according to government figures.
Chilling questions
Responsibility Turkey's deadliest ever mining accident has been directed mainly at the government by many. "The long history of deaths in mines in Turkey raises chilling questions over workers' safety," said Andrew Gardner of Amnesty International.
“The fact that the government rejected recent calls by parliamentarians to investigate serious work-related accidents is nothing short of shocking,” he said.
The mine disaster and ensuing anti-government protests are only the latest in a series of challenges to the AK Party from sections of Turkish society unhappy with the prime minister’s increasingly authoritative way of governing.
This month marks a year since the outbreak of the Gezi Park protests when thousands of Turks took to the streets to protest the government’s growing interference in people’s private lives, and renewed demonstrations are expected again.
Parallel state
Since December, Mr Erdogan has been battling supporters of exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen in the country's judiciary and police forces whom he views as trying to implement a "parallel state" in Turkey.
Turkey’s prime minister has also taken on Twitter, banning the social-media platform for two weeks in March. YouTube, where leaked conversations allegedly exposing high-level government graft were uploaded over several weeks earlier this year, has been blocked for a month, angering many.
Mr Erdogan is expected to announce a run for the Turkish presidency in August’s election, although this week’s events may damage his hope of staying in political office as his two-term prime ministerial position ends.