MOSCOW, May 14. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin offered condolences to Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the tragedy breaking out at a coalmine at the Turkish city of Som that claimed many lives. The Kremlin press service reported this on Wednesday.

“Putin conveyed words of sympathy and support to relatives and those loved and wished soonest recovery to injured people,” the press service said.

The tragedy has occurred at a coalmine near the city of Som in the western Turkish province Manis on May 13. More than 200 miners are on the list of fatalities, tens of people were taken to hospital with carbon dioxide poisoning. As many as 787 miners were in the coalmine at the moment of the coalmine incident.

National three-day mourning was declared in Turkey.

This crash is one of most large-scale coalmine incidents for the whole history of Turkey. For the past 60 years more than three thousand miners died in republican shafts. The most large-scale tragedy for the number of casualties has broken out in the province of Zonguldak in 1992 when 263 miners died in rock collapse triggered by methane blast.