Three close friends died in mine explosion

Three of the miners who lost their lives in the mine explosion in the Black Sea province of Bartın were close friends and started working at the mine on the same day three years ago, daily Hürriyet has reported.

Among 41 miners who died in the explosion, Okan Akgül, Şaban Yıldırım, both 27 years of age, and Mehmet Bulut, 31, worked the same shift in the mine.

After the explosion, the rescue team found the dead bodies of three close friends in the same area.

The three miners who resided in the same village were buried in graves dug side by side in the village cemetery.

"I started working in the mine in 2009. At that time, I was the only miner from the village of Ahatlar. In 2019, three friends from our village started to work. I was very pleased that there were four of us from the same village," the miner Bülent Arçın told the daily Hürriyet.

The miners who worked the morning shift returned to the region as soon as they heard the explosion, Arçın noted, adding that the miners participated in the rescue works.

"We found their bodies side by side, and now we are laying them to rest side by side. This is an unbearable, indescribable pain," he added.

"We were all peasant children, we lived nearby. The peasant children of Anatolia died," another miner Sedat Akgün said.

During the funeral of Akgül, who was the father of two girls, one of his daughters showed his father's photo and said, "This is my father," which deeply saddened everyone, according to the daily Hürriyet.

Mehmet Bulut was the father of an 11-month-old baby girl, while Şaban Yıldırım and his wife were expecting twin baby girls.