Hundreds Protest As 18 K!lled in Turkey Steel Plant Expl0sion
Hundreds Protest As 18 Killed in Turkey Steel Plant Explosion
Hundreds rallied to demand justice and safety at work Tuesday, a day after a massive explosion at a Turkish steel plant killed 18 people and injured 12 others, as bereaved families began burying their dead.
Onlookers said Monday’s massive explosion felt like “an earthquake” when it ripped through the HABAS steel factory in Aliaga, near the western port city of Izmir.
It saw a container of 120 tonnes of liquid steel falling onto a furnace, causing a huge explosion, a worker told AFP. Of the 12 injured, one is in critical condition.
HABAS is one of Turkey’s top steel producers.
Citing forensic investigators, Deputy Justice Minister Can Tuncay said the victims had died from “burns so severe they caused carbonisation”.
Outside Aliaga’s forensic institute, family members told AFP they had waited all night for DNA confirmation their loved ones had been identified, after which the bodies were released for burial.
At least five families were able to hold funerals on Tuesday, an AFP correspondent said.
Police arrested six people on Monday and a day later, detained HABAS chairman Mehmet Rustu Basaran, Anadolu news agency said, with 10 others also sought.Breaking news alerts
As night fell, about 700 people gathered in Aliaga to demand justice and safety measures at work, among them workers, bereaved relatives and residents, an AFP correspondent said.
“Not an accident but murder! End worker deaths,” they chanted as others waved banners demanding HABAS be held accountable.
“Conditions are very harsh,” 45-year-old protester Arzu Yildiz told AFP, saying she also worked at a nearby plant which was “one of the highest-risk factories.”
“As for our friends who died, we’re devastated. We’ll do whatever it takes (to get justice), and will never abandon the struggle.”
Another 150 demonstrators gathered in Istanbul, shouting “Killer bosses will be held accountable!” under the watchful eye of hundreds of riot police, another correspondent said.
“Because of the workplace killings you dismiss every day as ‘accidents’, this country has turned into an enormous workers’ graveyard,” said an organisers’ statement read out to the crowd.
And some 300 gathered in Ankara, shouting similar slogans, an AFP correspondent said.
Sevval Ozcelik, whose brother Kaan Ozcelik, 25, died, told journalists: “They took my brother’s life. I will not let this go … They will answer for this, one by one.”
– ‘Worst scene I’ve seen’ –
Also fighting for his life was a HABAS truck driver who escaped the blast but went inside to find his colleagues and was so traumatised that he set himself alight outside the factory, said an AFP photographer who witnessed the incident
He was being treated at Izmir City hospital, with a provincial health directorate spokeswoman identifying him as Turan Ilbay.
“His condition is serious; he is being monitored in intensive care,” she told AFP.
