Turkish families bury miners as toll rises to 282

SOMA, Turkey — Women sang improvised ballads about the departed over freshly dug graves Thursday, even as backhoes carved row upon row of graves into the dirt and hearses lined up outside the cemetery with more victims of Turkey's worst mining disaster.

Rescue teams recovered another eight victims, raising the death toll to 282, with some 142 people still unaccounted for, according to government figures. The disaster Tuesday has set off protests around Turkey and thrown Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's presidential ambitions off stride. Blackening his reputation further, one of Erdogan's aides was accused of kicking a protester on the ground.

At a graveyard in the western town of Soma, where coal mining has been the main industry for decades, women wailed loudly in an improvised display of mourning. They swayed and sang songs about their relatives as the bodies were taken from coffins and lowered into their graves. Pictures of the lost relatives were pinned onto their clothing.

"The love of my life is gone," some sang, chanting the names of dead miners.

No miner has been brought out alive since dawn Wednesday from the Soma coal mine where the explosion and fire occurred. Many mourners said they spent their whole lives fearing something like this.

Upcoming Events