REPORTER: Brett Mason

Anger and grief on Turkey's streets, thousands of protesters nationwide unleash their fury on the government, demanding answers after the country's deadliest industrial disaster.

SAHIN BICER (Translation): Hope, it’s exhausted. But we still wait… At the entrance to the Soma coal mine, Sahin and his wife wait with the world's media.

AYNUR BICER (Translation): Just to receive our dead.

SAHIN BICER (Translation): Let us receive our dead, so the families know where they are.

AYNUR BICER (Translation): They must not be left underground, there is no more hope.

Sahin was about to start his shift when the mine was rocked by a massive explosion. Now, four of his friends are missing. It was during an afternoon shift change that a blast deep underground destroyed the mine's electrical supplies. Hundreds were trapped. Most men were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning, or by fire that raged through the tunnels. Rescuers worked frantically but hope faded and son they were only bringing up bodies.

This may be the centre of Turkey's worst mining disaster but the shock waves of the deadly blast have travelled much further than the grubby maze of tunnels in which hundreds of this country 's poorest and most vulnerable men have lost their lives. In the village of Elmadere, mourners carry home the coffin of yet another son. It's the 11th and what they pray will be the final burial in what's been the most devastating 24 hours in this community's history.

WOMAN (Translation): The earth has taken him! The earth! Don’t cry!

The grief is overwhelming. In a village of just 30 houses, every family in this tight-knit community has lost a loved one.

TAYYIR KILINC (Translation): These are two brothers, our next-door neighbours. Two brothers, this is my son-in-law. My nephew, this is my nephew. This is my own child, my son. This is my son-in-law, also my brothers son.

INTERPRETER (Translation): Whose is this? Your nephew and Turgut?

TAYYIR KILINC (Translation): This one is my nephew, this one is my nephew too, and my neighbours, my next door neighbours…This pain is unbearable – I can’t bear this pain.

So many have died that the small village graveyard has been overwhelmed and a new cemetery has been hurriedly dug.

REPORTER: You've lost so many loved ones in this tragedy, what kind of an impact has this explosion had on a small community like yours?

TAYYIR KILINC (Translation): This had an awful impact, it is impossible to bear. It’s terrible, it’s a massacre for us, let’s call it a massacre.

Anguish that turned to nationwide anger when PM Erdogan visited the disaster site.

RECEP ERDOGAN, TURKISH PRIME MINISTER (Translation): Firstly, the incidents that happen in such mines, in coalmines…Please let’s not interpret them as if such incidents do not happen in such places. These are ordinary things.

Erdogan then remarks that mining accidents are in the nature of the business.

TAYYIR KILINC (Translation): They say it’s fate, we don’t call it fate. It’s not fate, it’s negligence.

SEZAI YILDIRIM (Translation): The work environment is terrible, you won’t believe how bad it is.

Miners like Sezai dig underground for 10 hours a day to earn just $17.

SEZAI YILDIRIM (Translation): This company has always seen us as slaves, just like animals. How can I describe it? You are not treated as human beings. Their only concern is coal and coal and coal…

He has just buried his two brothers and two brothers-in-law.

SEZAI YILDIRIM (Translation): Tell me where justice is, why incidents like this do not happen in Germany or China? My…I will be sacked for talking – let the world know, I don’t care.

But tragedy has given these men courage. They rubbish company and government claims the mine was inspected regularly.

ERKAN YILDIRIM (Translation): How did the audits happen? They were warned a week ahead, they’d say they would be coming. They’d have the immediate area cleaned, not touching the risky areas. They’d take them around for an hour or so, serve them a meal, feed them…They’d pay them or whatever and send them away.

They tell me that what little safety equipment there was in the mine was out dated, that they had complained about a strange smell in the tunnels for at least a fortnight before the explosion. And perhaps, worst of all, that when the fire broke out, they were ordered to keep working, rather than evacuate.

ERKAN YILDIRIM (Translation): The fire started as a small fire half an hour before, if they had evacuated people then and not tried to get the coal out, this could have been prevented. There was an explosion half an hour later and people could not be saved then. Half an hour earlier and everyone could have got out safely.

Erkan lost three cousins.

REPORTER: What kind of person makes people work in these dangerous conditions?

ERKAN YILDIRIM (Translation): These are people who only think of their own lives and regard others as animals, lower than animals.

787 miners are said to have been underground at the time of the disaster, Erkan says this too is a lie. He's convinced the number is closer to 1,000, as many miners were unregistered illegal workers. If this is true, then hundreds of bodies remain unaccounted for, sealed deep within the mine.

SEZAI YILDIRIM (Translation): Precautions would have prevented this…everyone here would still be alive. Claiming…. No, this is a massacre - it’s murder. This is negligence. Nothing else, this is negligence.

AKIN CELIK, SOMA OPERATIONS MANAGER (Translation): There is no negligence on our part. No negligence at all in this incident. We worked heart and soul. In 20 years, I have not seen anything like this.

The mine owners, Soma Holdings, deny all claims of negligence. Akin Celik has been arrested since making this statement, along with two other company executives.

BEKIR SAHINER, PROSECUTER (Translation): The offence the suspects are accused of at this point is described as imprudent action leading to the death of one or more persons.

It has been revealed that the country's main opposition party demanded a safety inspection just 15 days before the explosion. Erdogan's government dismissed those calls.

OZGUR OZEL, MP (Translation): The main suspicion was that it was due to the close ties between the operators of this mine and the government party, that this mine was not audited properly.

It is the government's handling of the disaster's aftermath that's incited widespread anger. During a visit to the disaster site, the Prime Minister was booed and heckled. He can be heard taunting the crowd.

RECEP ERDOGAN (Translation): Come and boo me to my face.

Then a scuffle breaks out and he's accused of slapping a protester, adding to the public's outrage of these images taken of Erdogan's advisor kicking a demonstrator as he's held on the ground by special police. For most here there is no choice but to go back underground despite their fears - it's mining or nothing.

SAHIN BICER (Translation): We will go back in to work, we just have to. There’s the mine. That’s our bread. It’s only my sons who keep saying “Don’t go, don’t go!”

Reporter/Camera/Editor
BRETT MASON

Producer
VICTORIA STROBL

Fixer
IREP CAKIR

Translations/Subtitling
GUN GENCER

Editors
MICAH MCGOWN
NICK O’BRIEN