Riot police fired water cannon in Ankara on Wednesday afternoon to disperse a group of students from Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) who wanted to march towards the Energy Ministry to protest the heavy loss of life in Tuesday’s mine blast in Manisa’s Soma district.

Turks took to the streets across the country on Wednesday to protest the Soma coal mine blast in which over 200 people have been killed and hundreds of others remain trapped.

Many people lay down on the ground at İstanbul’s Taksim metro station to protest the mine blast. Similar protests also took place at İstanbul’s Kadıköy and Şişli districts.

n the capital city of Ankara, demonstrators gathered at Güven Park for a sit-in protest.

In the Aegean city of İzmir, electronic boards at metro stations read, “Hearts with Soma.”

Furthermore, many students in university campuses and members of several trade unions held protests in various provinces in which they smeared coal dust on their faces.

Rescuers pulled more dead and injured from the coal mine in western Turkey on Wednesday, more than 12 hours after the explosion, bringing the death toll to 205 in the nation’s worst mining disaster in decades.

Hundreds more were still believed to be trapped in the mine in Soma, around 120 kilometers northeast of the Aegean coastal city of İzmir. The explosion, which triggered a fire, occurred shortly after 3:00 p.m. (1200 GMT) on Tuesday.