File Photo: Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc addresses the media in Ankara May 31, 2010 (Photo: Reuters)
Turkey promised "a plan of action" Monday to improve workplace safety after a lift crashed to the ground from the 32nd storey of a building, killing ten people.
The vow comes after police fired tear gas and water canon to disperse 1,000 people who gathered in Istanbul Sunday to protest about the deaths, which further sullied Turkey's abysmal work safety record.
"It has become obvious that workplace safety is a vital issue. A plan of action will be put together and unveiled," Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters following a weekly cabinet meeting.
He added that that a committee of inspectors would be set up to investigate the accident upon the order of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
"From now on regulations and control mechanisms will be implemented more carefully," he added.
The accident happened on Saturday night at Torunlar Centre, which is being built as a luxury skyscraper in Istanbul's upscale Mecidiyekoy district.
But Selahattin Demirtas, of the opposition Peoples's Democratic Party (HDP), claimed that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was protecting the company building the tower.
"These gentlemen are sponsored by the AKP. They have solid backing. So why would they spend money on workers' safety?" said Demirtas, co-chair of the pro-Kurdish party.
"These towers are like headstones for mass graves," he added.
The cause of the accident remains unclear.
Emrah Acar, a worker responsible for the elevator, told the Vatan daily that his supervisors had repeatedly ignored him when he told them the brake mechanism had broken down.
"If they had listened to me, we would not have had this disaster," he said.
Dozens of construction workers on Monday blocked a busy highway in Istanbul's working-class Halkali neighbourhood to protest against lax workplace safety measures.
The accident has put Turkey's poor record on workplace safety under further scrutiny after 301 miners died in May in the western town of Soma, in Turkey's worst-ever industrial accident.
According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Turkey has the highest number of work deaths in Europe, and the third highest in the world.
In the past five years 1,754 construction workers have died in Turkey, figures from the Turkish statistics office (TUIK) show.
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