Sendika informs 256 people have already been declared dead, but the number could increase significantly. The government led by the Justice and Development Party (JDP) has sent military troops and police forces to the region in an attempt to prevent people from learning the real number of casualties, according to reports.
The cause of the accident has not been determined yet, but some believe that it could be an explosion in the command room or at one of the transformers. In any case, organizations in the mining sector highlight the fact that privatization and sub-contraction of unskilled labor made the Soma mine an unsafe workplace.
Hackers of the Turkish group RedHack have defaced the websiteof the Soma Municipality (soma.bel.tr) “in protest against the mine explosion deaths.”
“Although 60 failures were found at Soma coal mine after 10 inspections it was reopened by officials again. Profit made this gov’t blind,” the hackers noted.
In the meantime, other hacktivists have also joined the protest, launching distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks against Turkish government websites.