Aliaga (Turkey) (AFP) - Hundreds rallied to demand justice and safety at work Tuesday, a day after a massive explosion at a Turkish steel plant killed 18 people and injured 12 others, as bereaved families began burying their dead.

Onlookers said Monday’s massive explosion felt like “an earthquake” when it ripped through the HABAS steel factory in Aliaga, near the western port city of Izmir.

It saw a container of 120 tonnes of liquid steel falling onto a furnace, causing a huge explosion, a worker told AFP. Of the 12 injured, one is in critical condition.

HABAS is one of Turkey’s top steel producers.

Citing forensic investigators, Deputy Justice Minister Can Tuncay said the victims had died from “burns so severe they caused carbonisation”.

Outside Aliaga’s forensic institute, family members told AFP they had waited all night for DNA confirmation their loved ones had been identified, after which the bodies were released for burial.

At least five families were able to hold funerals on Tuesday, an AFP correspondent said.

Police arrested six people on Monday and a day later, detained HABAS chairman Mehmet Rustu Basaran, Anadolu news agency said, with 10 others also sought.

As night fell, about 700 people gathered in Aliaga to demand justice and safety measures at work, among them workers, bereaved relatives and residents, an AFP correspondent said.

“Not an accident but murder! End worker deaths,” they chanted as others waved banners demanding HABAS be held accountable.

“Conditions are very harsh,” 45-year-old protester Arzu Yildiz told AFP, saying she also worked at a nearby plant which was “one of the highest-risk factories.”

“As for our friends who died, we’re devastated. We’ll do whatever it takes (to get justice), and will never abandon the struggle.”

Another 150 demonstrators gathered in Istanbul, shouting “Killer bosses will be held accountable!” under the watchful eye of hundreds of riot police, another correspondent said.

“Because of the workplace killings you dismiss every day as ‘accidents’, this country has turned into an enormous workers’ graveyard,” said an organisers’ statement read out to the crowd.

And some 300 gathered in Ankara, shouting similar slogans, an AFP correspondent said.

Sevval Ozcelik, whose brother Kaan Ozcelik, 25, died, told journalists: “They took my brother’s life. I will not let this go … They will answer for this, one by one.”

- ‘Worst scene I’ve seen’ -

Also fighting for his life was a HABAS truck driver who escaped the blast but went inside to find his colleagues and was so traumatised that he set himself alight outside the factory, said an AFP photographer who witnessed the incident.

He was being treated at Izmir City hospital, with a provincial health directorate spokeswoman identifying him as Turan Ilbay.

“His condition is serious; he is being monitored in intensive care,” she told AFP.

Ilbay, 40, had earlier spoken to Anadolu outside the plant where he had worked for 23 years.

“There was a huge sound, like a bomb, it shook the truck … When I went inside the factory, I was faced with the worst scene I’ve seen in my life,” he said.

Hours later, in a horrifying act of protest, he set himself alight outside the main gates, AFP photographer Berkcan Zengin, who was at the scene, said.

“He went to the area where cameras were recording, he poured petrol over his head, then splashed it all over himself as he walked. Then he suddenly set himself on fire,” he said.

“He fell to the ground and struggled. The gendarmes intervened with fire extinguishers and he was taken to hospital by ambulance,” he said, his images showing the man wearing the same red polo neck jumper he had worn in his earlier interview with Anadolu.

- Chequered safety record -

There has been growing anger over what workers’ groups say is a chequered safety record at HABAS, with the left-wing Evrensel newspaper saying at least 11 workers had died there over the past decade.

Contacted by AFP, HABAS declined to respond.

DEM, Turkey’s third party, said the explosion was a case of “workplace murder”, demanding the resignation of the labour minister, the industry minister and top safety officials.

The main opposition Yeni Parti has also demanded a full parliamentary inquiry into the explosion and possible workplace safety failures, ANKA news agency reported.