ANKARA
Financial support is to be given to the families of victims in last week's Soma mining accident, Turkish officials have said.
Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay and Minister of Family and Social Policy, Aysenur Islam, made the announcement in a joint press conference at Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) in the capital, Ankara, on Thursday.
Turkish citizens could send money directly or via SMS to the aid accounts, Atalay said.
"Every dime and penny collected for this account will be spent on Soma," he added.
A total of 432 children, with the average age of 10 years, had been left without fathers, Islam said.
"The AFAD and ministry team have reached out to 289 families so far and we are keeping in touch with other families. Out of the miners who died, 251 were married and 46 were single," she said.
Aid campaign
Islam added that 84 of the miners who lost their lives did not have any children.
A total of 236 staff -- including psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers as well as 88 volunteers affiliated with NGOs -- were working with the children.
Public institutions, civil society organizations and private organizations are to launch a joint campaign for help, which will be collected by AFAD.
Each of the victims' families is being revisited and identified, including their status and the children’s education level, Atalay added.
A detailed examination is to be carried out to see whether the families have housing and what requests they might have.
Dangerous workplaces
Atalay said many companies have indicated they want to help build houses for the victims’ families and to pay for the children’s education costs.
What caused the blast inside the mine is yet to be determined, but suspicions have centered on an explosion and fire, which arose from an electrical fault.
The total number of injured was 486 people, while the number of people who have been released from hospital is 122, Atalay said.
The accident, in which 301 people died, is the deadliest in Turkey’s history, surpassing an explosion in Zonguldak in 1992 which killed 263 miners.
Mines and stone quarries are among the most dangerous places to work in Turkey, according to government statistics.
Since 1941, more than 3,000 people have died in Turkey and more than 100,000 have been injured in mining accidents, figures from Turkey's statistics agency show.
