The chief executive of the mine where 301 miners died in 2014 in Turkey's deadliest industrial accident on Thursday insisted he was not a murderer and said he was still struggling to understand the causes of the tragedy.

"What hurt me the most were the charges. I am not a murderer," Can Gurkan, the chief executive of the Soma Komur mining company, said on the third day of the trial into the disaster.

Dozens of suspects, including former top company managers, went on trial Monday over modern Turkey's worst mining disaster that left 301 miners dead in the western town of Soma and exposed major safety shortcomings in the industry.

Of the forty-five people standing trial, eight are former top managers from the Soma Komur group that ran the mine who are charged with murder and face sentences of 25 years in prison for each of the 301 fatalities last year.

Turkish rescue workers were on Saturday battling fires to reach the last two coal miners trapped by the country's worst-ever industrial disaster that has killed 301 workers and led to a surge of anger over the government response.

Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said two miners were still thought to be in the collapsed mine, based on information from families, while 485 have either escaped or been rescued since Tuesday's explosion in the western town of Soma.

Turkish police on Wednesday fired tear gas and water cannon at hundreds of people protesting an explosion at a mine that has killed at least 205 people and left scores of workers trapped.

Around 800 protesters, mostly students, hurled stones at the police and shouted anti-government slogans as they tried to march from a university in Ankara to the energy ministry, an AFP photographer said.

Anger was growing across Turkey on Wednesday as hopes faded for scores of workers trapped in a collapsed mine and the death toll hit 245, edging it closer to becoming the country's worst-ever industrial disaster.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in Ankara and Istanbul, accusing the government and mining industry of negligence, as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan rejected claims of government culpability.