– ‘Time isn’t in our favour’ –
Turkey’s ministry of labour and social security said the mine was last inspected on March 17 and was found to be compliant with safety regulations.
But Oktay Berrin, a miner, said workers were not protected underground.
“There is no security in this mine,” he told AFP.
“The unions are just puppets and our management only cares about money.”
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office said he would arrive in Soma on Wednesday after cancelling a trip to Albania.
Speaking in Ankara, the leader expressed his “heartfelt condolences” to the families of those who died.
“Some of the workers have been rescued and I hope we will be able to rescue the others,” Erdogan said.
Energy Minister Yildiz told journalists in Soma that a team of 400 people were involved in the rescue effort and that the main cause of the deaths was carbon monoxide and dioxide poisoning.
“Time isn’t working in our favour. We need to get them out. We could be in a troubled situation,” he said.
The miners are all thought to have gas masks, but it was not clear how long they would last.
Vedat Didari, a professor of mining, told AFP that the biggest risk was the lack of oxygen.
“If the ceiling fans are not working, the workers could die within an hour,” said Didari, from the Bulent Ecevit University in the city of Zonguldak.
Explosions and cave-ins are common in Turkey, particularly in private mines where safety regulations are often flouted.
Turkey’s worst mining accident happened in 1992 when 263 workers were killed in a gas explosion in a mine in Zonguldak.
Soma is one of the key centres for lignite coal mining in Turkey, a district with a population of around 100,000 where the mines and a lignite-fired thermal power plant are the main economic activity.
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