Cyanide-laced landslide swallows gold mine workers alive

This is the harrowing moment a landslide buried as many as nine workers of a gold mine inside.

Footage captured by a bulldozer driver shows the surging mud sweeping through the valley like a giant volcanic eruption.

No one has heard from the workers at the Çöpler gold mine since the disaster took place near the town of Ilic in Turkey.

Interior minister Ali Yerlikaya confirmed that nine workers were missing since the landslide struck at about 2.30pm on Tuesday.

Some 400 search and rescue personnel have been deployed to the scene of the incident in the mountainous Erzincan province.

But experts and local officials said the search was complicated by the presence of cyanide – a highly toxic chemical compound used to extract gold from ore – in the ground.

The aftermath of the landslide in the Ilic district of Erzincan (Picture: AFP)

Rescuers work at the scene of the landslide in the area where the gold mine is (Picture: Xinhua/Shutterstock)

‌Anagold Mining has operated the Çöpler gold mine for 15 years, with 667 staff generally employed at the site.

In a statement, the company said its ‘most important priority in this difficult process … is the health and safety of our employees and contractors.’

It added: ‘This is a painful situation.

‌’Immediately after the incident, we immediately contacted our employees in the region, put our emergency plan into action and informed the relevant public institutions and organisations.’

There have been a string of mining accidents in Turkey in recent years. In 2022, an explosion in a coal mine killed 42 people.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.