SOMA — A Turkish mining company defended its safety record Friday, four days after at least 284 people died in an underground blaze at its coal mine in western Turkey. A maximum of 18 miners remain missing and the final death toll will be around 300, the country’s energy minister said. The mining company’s owner, Alp Gurkan, said he had spent his own money on improving standards at the mine. “I am hurting inside,” he said at a news conference of company officials. Turkey’s worst mining disaster has set off a raft of protests against what is perceived as official laxity and corruption. The public anger has stirred up new hostility toward Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, which was sharply criticized for last summer’s brutal response to protesters in Istanbul’s Taksim square and its crackdown earlier this year on social media. “It’s not an accident, it’s murder,” read a banner waved by trade unionists who marched through the streets of Istanbul on Thursday. – AP