Turkey coal-mine explosion deaths rise to 282

[karl262]

Did a quick search and didn't seem to find any threads about this.

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 seen kicking a protester held on the ground by police.

People are really upset at the Turkish governments lack of safety regulations for coal mining, and rightly so. Even with modern safety regulations like one might find in US or Canadian mines, you still couldn't pay me enough to go 2 KMs underground into one of those things.

Hopefully one day we can ween ourselves off of using coal as much as we do, it just seems so bloody dangerous to get the stuff out of the ground.

In the meantime, thoughts for the families.

[SeeGeeWhy]

It's actually stunning how much mortality is attributed to coal. You might think that it is because we use so much of it, but not so - coal related deaths on a per kW basis outstrip any other source by far! Some may be surprised that solar has a higher death rate/w than nuclear

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamescon...e-always-paid/

Here's another interesting way to look at it... How much energy does each source generate per life taken? Watch from 2:30...