Mine accident kills seven workers in Turkey's Kurdish province

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – A collapse in a coal mine in Turkey’s Kurdish province of Sirnak killed at least seven workers on Tuesday.

An online press release on the Ankara-appointed governor’s office initially listed the number of killed at six, but after the corpse of a worker trapped under debris was found the casualties rose to seven, said Kurdistan 24’s Turkish language service.

The governorate said a critically-wounded worker remained under intensive treatment at a local hospital.

One of the victims of the accident turned out to be a newly-wed man who had lost his former wife and three kids in a 2014 traffic accident.

The victim, identified as 32-year-old Yilmaz Magrur, died along with his brother, Sabri, who was working in the mine at the same time.

Judicial authorities launched an investigation into the incident which a landslide caused.

A prosecutor was investigating to assess if there was a failure by the operators of the privately-owned mine working without a license in an area banned by the Natural Resources Ministry.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the second largest opposition bloc, held the government responsible for having allowed the mine to operate despite the ban.

“Fatal occupational accidents have become a norm in the country,” the HDP said in a statement.

Sirnak Province, rich in resources such as oil and coal, is home to many mines.

The Sirnak accident is the second deadly one in the Kurdish region in less than a year.

In November 2016, a copper mine collapse killed 10 workers in the neighboring province of Siirt.

The last decade’s economic growth under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s successive Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments came with a toll in work safety in mining and industrial zones.

A disaster in May 2014 in a coal mine in the Soma district of the western province of Manisa resulted in the deaths of 301 workers, injuring over 80 others.

In 2010, an explosion at another coal mine in the Zonguldak Province of the Black Sea Region took 30 miners’ life.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany