ANKARA: Security camera footage showed that two separate fires broke out in a Turkish mine just days before a blast left 301 people dead in the country's worst industrial accident, local media reported on Sunday.
Criminal experts in Ankara examined footage from 16 security cameras recorded between April 27 and May 18 as part of an investigation into the disaster in the western town of Soma in May, the private Dogan news agency reported.
The first fire erupted on May 11 and lasted 16 hours and the second one on May 12, only a day before the deadly mine explosion, Dogan said.
Neither blaze was registered by the mine, according to the experts' report which was sent to the Soma public prosecutor's office.
The mine's operator Soma Komur, accused of flouting basic safety standards to maximise profits, has denied any responsibility, but eight of its officials have been arrested and charged with manslaughter.
Most of the victims in the accident died of carbon monoxide poisoning. An initial report on the accident pointed to several safety violations in the mine, including a shortage of carbon monoxide detectors and ceilings made of wood instead of metal.
The handling of the disaster has piled pressure on the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the run up to presidential elections in August.
Erdogan has said mining accidents were in "the nature of the business", sparking furious accusations of government indifference to the victims' plight.
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