The coal mine explosion in northern Turkey on Friday night left 41 dead and 28 others injured.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan's comments triggered protests in Istanbul, with some describing the accident in northern Turkey as "a massacre".Friday's blast at the facility on the Black Sea also left 28 injured."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.But the comment angered many.
Angry families suspect gas may have played a role. The father of a man in his early 20s who died in the explosion told Pakistan's Associated Press that his son had also reported smelling gas for 10 days. In the village of Makaraci, which lost four men, a tearful woman told Mr Erdogan at her brother's funeral: "President, my brother knew, he said there was a gas leak 10, 15 days ago. He said 'they will explode us soon'. How come it's negligence? He said 'they will explode us here'... He knew it."
According to news agency AFP, after a moment of silence, Mr Erdogan replied: "Sorry for your loss, may Allah give patience." Around 110 people were in the mine at the time of Friday's blast, almost half of them at more than 300m deep. Some 58 people working in the mine when the blast went off were rescued or got out by themselves.Turkey witnessed its deadliest coal mining disaster in 2014, when 301 people died after a blast in the western town of Soma.
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