It’s 01.38 am as I begin to write this and since about 6pm my mind has been in overload.
I should be fast asleep, but as the number of deaths continue to rise, I can’t.
That’s right, deaths, a mass explosion has occurred in one of the largest mines in Soma, Manisa, Turkey…
My eyes took over me last night, yet all I’ve thought about since waking up our the hundreds of workers and families.
205, 205 miners, 205 families now broken, this mine tragedy is the worst in Turkeys history, national bereavement has been announced across the country. I can’t begin to even comprehend the pain those families are going through.
A news reporter explains it as “the centre of pain and hope” as he reports from the scene. The number of lives lost are rising according to reports, as I write this. I’m lost for words and cannot imagine the fear, the hope, the anxiety and intertwining of emotions those families, relatives and most of all workers who are alive and waiting to be rescued from underground.
An exact number isn’t known of lives lost, but a total of 787 mine workers were underground, as the explosion took place in the mines power distribution unit. A changing of workers was occurring at that point, thousands are the scene.
Waiting, waiting for their loved ones, waiting for some sort of news and most of all filled with hope.. The anticipation, the fear and impatience of a parent, wife, sister, a brother and child, hoping and praying for their loved one to be alive, to be okay.
As I watched coverage from yesterday’s scene, a worker who was rescued and being lifted into an ambulance, said: “Shall I take my boots off? So the stretcher doesn’t get dirty?” A man who had just escaped death, was worried about the ambulance becoming dirty- these are the type of people who risked their lives everyday for only 900 Turkish lira a month.
I can’t find the words to write anymore, my thoughts and prayers are with all those in Soma and Turkey…
