Hundreds of rescuers deployed in search for 9 workers missing at landslide-hit Turkish gold mine

ANKARA – Hundreds of rescuers on Wednesday pressed forward with efforts to search for at least 9 workers trapped at a gold mine in japanese Turkey that used to be engulfed through a large landslide.

The landslide struck the Copler mine in town of Ilic in Turkey’s mountainous Erzincan province on Tuesday. Footage apparently shot through a employee confirmed an enormous mass of earth dashing down a gully, overrunning the entirety in its trail. The landslide concerned a mound of soil extracted from the mine, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya mentioned.

Some 800 search and rescue team of workers, together with police and army groups, mine rescuers and volunteers, have been deployed to seek out the mine workers, Yerlikaya mentioned early Wednesday.

Other workers at the mine have additionally joined the efforts to rescue their colleagues, whilst households of the missing waited at a space as regards to the mine for news of their family members, Haberturk tv reported.

An investigation into the crisis has been introduced.

Experts, in the meantime, have warned that the landslide would possibly raise environmental dangers. Geologist Suleyman Pampal mentioned the soil that shaped the landslide were processed for gold and would possibly include unhealthy ingredients reminiscent of cyanide this is used to extract gold. He additionally warned of a risk to the within reach Euphrates River.

The Environment Ministry mentioned in a observation {that a} flow resulting in the Euphrates used to be closed to stop water air pollution. Erzincan Gov. Hamza Aydoglu additionally mentioned there used to be no leakage into the waterway.

The mine used to be closed down in 2020 following a cyanide leak into the river, which stretches thru Turkey, Syria and Iraq. It reopened two years later after the corporate used to be fined and a cleanup operation used to be finished.

Turkey has a deficient mine protection file. In 2022, an explosion at the Amasra coal mine at the Black Sea coast killed 41 workers. The nation’s worst mining crisis came about in 2014 at a coal mine in Soma, western Turkey, the place 301 other folks have been killed.

In the wake of the ones incidents, engineers warned that protection dangers have been incessantly left out and inspections no longer adequately performed.