Last Updated, Friday, 9:12 a.m. | As rescuers battled Wednesday to save the lives of coal miners trapped underground in western Turkey, more than 24 hours after an explosion killed at least 274 at the site, anger at the authorities boiled over during a visit by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was booed and briefly forced to seek refuge in a shop in the nearby town of Soma.
Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News and the online site Zete reported that Mr. Erdogan’s security detail removed the license plate from the prime minister’s car after his motorcade was set upon and he took shelter from protesters in a market.
The jeers for the prime minister, which were caught on video by the Turkish news agency DHA and widely shared online, followed remarks in which he had sought to deflect blame from his government by citing greater death tolls in mine disasters in other nations in previous centuries.
More footage recorded after Mr. Erdogan’s remarks showed protesters in Soma calling him a “killer” and chanting for him to resign.
Later in the day, Turkish bloggers, including the well-known journalist Serdar Akinan, drew attention to a photograph that appeared to show a protester being kicked during the unrest in Soma by a man in a suit who looked like the prime minister’s aide Yusuf Yerkel.
Mr. Yerkel, the deputy chief of the cabinet, did not initially respond to the allegation, despite requests from journalists and a flood of mentions on his Twitter feed. A brief video clip that showed the kick taking place, in slow-motion and in reverse, was posted online and studied for clues with Zapruder-like intensity.
In the early hours of Thursday morning, after Reuters and The Associated Press published photographs that showed the incident from more angles, Mr. Yerkel confirmed to the the BBC’s Turkish-language service that he was involved in the scuffle and promised to make a statement soon.
There were also protests against the government in Ankara and Istanbul, where demonstrators daubed the word “Katiller,” or “Killers,” in red paint on the outside of a building owned by the company that operates the mine in Soma.