2024-02-14 07:32:02
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Hundreds of rescuers continued their search Wednesday for at least nine workers trapped in a gold mine in eastern Turkey that was devastated by a massive landslide.
The incident occurred at the Copler mine in the town of Ilic, in the mountainous province of Erzincan, on Tuesday. The images apparently recorded by a worker showed a huge mass of earth moving at high speed down a ravine and overwhelming everything in its path. The landslide affected a pile of earth extracted from the mine, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.
Some 800 troops, including police and military, mine rescuers and volunteers, were mobilized to find the workers, Yerlikaya said early Wednesday.
Other mine employees joined the operation to find their colleagues, while the families of the missing waited for news of their loved ones in a nearby area, Haberturk television reported.
Authorities opened an investigation into the disaster.
Experts, for their part, have warned that the landslide might pose environmental risks. Geologist Suleyman Pampal explained that the earth that formed the landslide had been processed to extract gold and might contain dangerous substances such as cyanide, which is used in the process. He also warned of the threat it poses to the nearby Euphrates River.
The Environment Ministry said in a statement that a stream that flows into the Euphrates was closed to prevent water pollution. The governor of Erzincan, Hamza Aydoglu, pointed out that there were no leaks into the river.
The mine was closed in 2020 following a cyanide spill into the river, which runs through Turkey, Syria and Iraq. It reopened two years later following a fine to the operator and a cleanup operation.
Türkiye has a poor mine safety record. In 2022, an explosion at the Amasra coal mine on the Black Sea coast killed 41 workers. The country’s worst mining disaster occurred in 2014 at a coal pit in Soma, western Turkey, where 301 people died.
After these incidents, engineers warned that risks were often ignored at these farms and inspections were not carried out properly.
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