Forty bodies have been recovered so far after the explosion in a coal mine in Amasra in the Black Sea region in northern Turkey. The HDP has cancelled all celebrations of the party's tenth anniversary.
The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has cancelled all celebrations of its tenth anniversary planned for this weekend due to the mine accident in Amasra, Bartın. At least forty people were killed in an explosion at a coal mine in the port city of Amasra in the Black Sea region in northern Turkey on Friday. At the time of the disaster, 110 workers were in the mine owned by the state-owned company Turkish Hard Coal Enterprises.
The HDP was founded on 15 October 2012 as an umbrella organisation of progressive and Kurdish parties and organisations and is currently under threat of being banned. Thousands of party members, including former co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, MPs and mayors, are in prison. Most recently, HDP MP Semra Güzel was arrested in early September.
Mining accidents occur time and again in Turkey, often due to inadequate safety precautions. The most serious accident in Turkey's history occurred in May 2014, when 301 miners died in the Soma mine in the west of the country. The tragedy triggered protests against the government of then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
