ANKARA — Rescue workers are trying to reach nine people who have been trapped in a gold mine for more than six hours after a landslide hit the area in eastern Turkey on Tuesday.
Heavy rains on Wednesday have impeded the rescue work, according to local reports.
The collapse at the privately owned gold mine took place at around 2:30 p.m. local time in Turkey’s eastern province of Erzincan, according to Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, who said 800 rescuers were dispatched to the area.
A video published by the Demiroren News Agency showed the landslide pouring down the valley where the gold mine is located, burying vast swaths of land.
Maden işletmelerinin denetimi maalesef yetersiz. Bu denetim konusunu mutlaka düzenlememiz gerekiyor, aksi halde bu kazaların ve afetlerin önüne geçmemiz mümkün görünmüyor. Madenlerin JEOTEKNIK kontrolü düzenli ve uygun sekilde yapılmadığı için maden sahaları tehlikeli durumdadır. pic.twitter.com/NDw7pKUXmO
— Ercan BOYRAZ (@ercannboyraz) February 13, 2024
Among the nine, five are thought to be trapped inside or near an office container. Another three were inside a vehicle and one was inside a heavy machine at the site, Yerlikaya said on Wednesday. He added that four people including a senior official responsible for the mine had been detained as part of an investigation launched into the incident on Tuesday.
Experts and environmental activists rang alarm bells over the risk of contaminated soil — harmful substances are used in gold mines including cyanide — entering the nearby Euphrates River and causing an environmental catastrophe. The Turkish government downplayed the risk.
The Turkish Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change announced that a nearby local waterway’s access to the Euphrates River was blocked.
In another incident last year, a broken pipe in the mine spilled a harmful solution that contained an estimated eight kilograms of cyanide, according to the website of the operator of the mine, Anagold Mining.
Anagold is owned by the Denver-headquartered SSR and Turkey-based Lidya mining companies.
In a statement on Tuesday, the company vowed “to mobilize all our resources to shed light on the incident immediately."
The statement also said that it is in contact with the relevant government bodies to rescue those trapped and that “the health and safety of our employees and contractors” was the first priority.
This developing story has been updated since initial publication.
