Turkey’s president has been criticised for linking the deaths of 41 miners in an explosion to “destiny”, saying such accidents “will always be,’ the BBC reports.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s comments triggered protests in Istanbul, with some describing the accident in northern Turkey as “a massacre”.
Relatives of the dead claim they reported being able to smell gas for more than a week.
Friday’s blast at the facility on the Black Sea also left 28 injured.
Mr Erdogan made the remarks during a visit to the site in Bartin province on Saturday.
“We are people who believe in the plan of destiny,” he told reporters, as he was surrounded by rescue workers. Such accidents “will always be, we need to know that too”, he added.
However, he added that he didn’t want to see “deficiencies or unnecessary risks”, according to Euronews.
But the comment angered many. Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu demanded to know “in which century we are living?”.
“Why [do] the mine accidents happen only in Turkey?” he said.
Emin Koramaz, who leads the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, dismissed the idea the blast could be described as an accident, alleging on Twitter that the miners had been sent “hundreds of metres underground without taking the necessary precautions, without inspection and without creating safe conditions”.
