SOMA, Turkey — Turkish women sang laments over freshly dug graves Thursday, even as backhoes carved row upon row of graves into the dirt and hearses lined up outside the cemetery with more victims of Turkey’s worst mining disaster.
Rescue teams recovered another nine victims, raising the death toll to 283, with scores of people unaccounted for, according to government figures.
Tuesday’s disaster has set off protests around Turkey and thrown Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s presidential ambitions off stride. Blackening his reputation further, one of Erdogan’s aides was seen kicking a protester held on the ground by armed police.
At a graveyard in the western town of Soma, where coal mining has been the main industry for decades, women wailed in an improvised display of mourning.
“The love of my life is gone,” some sang, chanting the names of dead miners.
Since dawn Wednesday, no miner has been brought out alive from the Soma coal mine, where the explosion and fire took place.
Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said the search for survivors has been hampered by a mine fire that had spread to a conveyor system — engulfing a 650-foot-long stretch — but progress was made Thursday on extinguishing it.
Rescue operations have been suspended several times as burning coal inside created toxic fumes and too-risky conditions.
Erdogan, expected to soon announce his candidacy for Turkey’s presidential election in August, was not welcome during his visit Wednesday. Turkish newspapers printed photographs Thursday of an Erdogan aide kicking a protester. The aide, Yusuf Yerkel, on Thursday issued a statement expressing regret but claiming he was provoked.
