A new fire and increased gas levels inside a coal mine in western Turkey are hampering search efforts for those missing underground, officials said.

Women sang improvised ballads about the departed over freshly dug graves, even as backhoes carved row upon row of graves into the dirt and hearses lined up outside the cemetery with more victims of Turkey’s worst mining disaster.

Anger and grief boiled over into a violent protest in the western Turkish town of Soma, where officials said at least 274 miners died in a coal mine explosion and fire.

A protest has erupted in the Turkish city of Soma where at least 238 coal miners have died after a mine explosion.

Women wailed uncontrollably, men knelt sobbing and others just stared in disbelief outside a coal mine in western Turkey as rescue workers removed a steady stream of bodies from an underground explosion and fire that killed at least 238 workers.

An explosion and a fire killed at least 151 workers at a coal mine in western Turkey and hundreds more remained trapped underground.

Turkey’s disaster management agency has raised the death toll from a mining accident in the west of the country to 70.

An explosion and fire at a coal mine in western Turkey has killed at least five people and trapped hundreds of workers underground.

An earthquake of magnitude 7.3 struck today off Japan’s east coast, the US Geological Survey said, and Japan’s emergency agencies issued a tsunami advisory for the region that includes the crippled Fukushima nuclear site.

WITNESSES to an incident which left a promising Irish GAA player fighting for his life in the US have told police the alleged attacker said “you won’t get up from that” as the victim lay on the ground.

Dangerous levels of radiation leaking from a crippled nuclear plant forced Japan to order 140,000 people to seal themselves indoors today after an explosion and fire dramatically escalated the crisis spawned by the earthquake and tsunami four days ago.

A TIDE of bodies washed up along Japan’s coastline, crematoriums were overwhelmed and rescue workers ran out of body bags as the nation faced the grim reality of a mounting humanitarian, economic and nuclear crisis.

Japanese nuclear experts were struggling to control three damaged reactors amid fears they could go into meltdown tonight.

Japan was overwhelmed today by the vast numbers of tsunami victims.

Rescue workers used chain saws and pickaxes today to dig out bodies in Japan’s devastated coastal towns, as Asia’s richest nation faced a mounting humanitarian, nuclear and economic crisis in the aftermath of a massive earthquake and tsunami that likely killed thousands.

The second hydrogen explosion in three days rocked Japan’s stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant today, sending a massive column of smoke into the air and wounding six workers.