A railed coal transfer tube collapsed at a thermal power plant in the Yatağan district of Turkey’s Muğla city at around 10 am on July 19, injuring 10 workers and killing 1. 9 of the workers were taken to a hospital, while rescue work is still in progress for 2 who have been stuck under a pile of iron. Several of the workers are reported to be in vital danger.
The power plant is owned by Bereket Enerji, a conglomeration of companies first founded by a public-private partnership in the early 2000’s, receiving huge amounts of loans from banks, and then fully privatised in 2014. Bereket Enerji is also known for their debts to several banks over $4 billion, and they had applied to banks for restructuring of their debts, and started to sell their properties in order to pay the debts earlier this month.
A photograph of the collapsed tube, on the other hand, begs several questions related to the privatisation, since the private sector is notorious for its negligence about work safety, causing occupational murders and even massacres: Could it be possible that replacement investments were passed over after the privatisation? Could the rail cars have been loaded more heavily than they could carry?
