Rescue workers in Turkey have announced that they have recovered the bodies of 28 of the miners who were trapped in a coal mine in Northern Turkey.
family's and relatives of the miners found dead in the collapsed coal mine.
A section of the mine which collapsed on Monday due to a powerful methane gas explosion had trapped 30 miners approximately 540 metres bellow surface.
The incident is being seen as the worst mining disaster in recent years.
Relatives of the miners had camped outside the mine in Zonguldak after getting the news of the collapse on Monday to get news from their loved ones.
Many of them broke down screaming and crying in front of TV cameras.
Energy Minister, Taner Yildiz, announced today that they have “reached the bodies of the 28 miners who were trapped under the mine but two remain trapped.”
Yildiz added that from initial findings that the miners had died from carbon dioxide poisoning.
Labour Minister, Ömer Dinçer, who had recently been protested by the loved ones of the miners, said “We are very saddened of the news, we send our condolences to the families of the miners and Turkey, we are doing all that is possible to find the other two miners.”
Rescue efforts were hugely delayed to huge damage at the main shaft which was used to lower the workers down to the mines was seriously damaged.
Yildiz told reporters that by Wednesday the elevator was fixed and even though there were obvious safety risks, the rescue workers went down to search for the trapped miners.
Another attempt through a second shaft which was 2 kilometers away from the main collapse had also failed due to huge stones which slowed the rescue attempts drastically.
The Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, also visited the site yesterday but was protested against.
Appropriately 2,700 workers have been killed in mining accidents in Turkey since 1955 According to official statistics.
Just three months ago another methane gas explosion at a coal mine in north-west Turkey resulted in 13 people being killed. In December 2009 another similar explosion in a coal mine in Bursa resulted in the death of 19 workers.
Turkey’s worst mining disaster was in 1992 where 270 people were killed in Zonguldak after a huge gas explosion collapsed the mine.
Turkey has one of the worst safety records in the mining industry amongst most industrial nations.
