ISTANBUL: Hundreds of Turkish rescue workers searched a cyanide field Tuesday for nine gold mine workers who were swept away by a massive landslide in eastern Turkey.
A massive landslide hit a gold mine, trapping at least nine workers underground, officials said.
The landslide at the Copler mine happened at 2:30 p.m. near the town of Ilic in Turkey’s mountainous Erzincan province. The footage, apparently taken by a nearby worker, showed a massive wave of earth crashing down a ravine, engulfing everything in its path.
The nine workers have not been heard from since the landslide and “are believed to be buried underground,” Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.
The landslide involved a pile of soil excavated from the mine, Yerlikaya told state-run TRT News urkey.
He said 400 search and rescue workers were at the scene. Turkey’s AFAD emergency agency said personnel from surrounding provinces were brought in to take part.
Meanwhile, Erzincan Mayor Bekir Aksun told Haberturk TV that 10 to 12 workers were missing. The Department of Energy also put the number at nine.
Geologist Suleyman Pampal told Haberturk that the soil that created the landslide was processed for gold and may contain dangerous substances such as cyanide. He also warned of an ecological threat to the nearby Euphrates River.
According to an environment ministry statement, a stream leading to the Euphrates was closed to prevent water pollution.
Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said an investigation into the disaster had been started. “I wish our Erzincan citizens a speedy recovery and I hope our mining brothers who are trapped under the rubble will be safely rescued,” he added.
Turkey has a poor history of mine safety. In 2022, an explosion at the Amasra coal mine on the Black Sea coast killed as many as 41 workers. The country’s worst mining disaster occurred in 2014 at the Soma coal mine in western Turkey, where 301 people died.
After these incidents, engineers warned that safety risks were often ignored and checks were not carried out adequately.
