Turkey has suspended the operating license of the gold mine in Erzincan province following last Tuesday’s massive landslide that buried nine workers, who are still being searched for as authorities reported on Sunday.
“We have canceled the environmental permit because the conditions are no longer appropriate, and without this license, the mine cannot operate,” said Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar during a press briefing near the site, broadcast live by the NTV network.
He left open the possibility that the certificate could be reactivated in the future if conditions improve.
Since the extensive landslide on Tuesday afternoon, rescue teams assisted by underground-detection radar have been searching for the nine miners buried by the slide, though the chances of finding them alive have diminished considerably.
“We have 2,700 people with 800 vehicles. We do not lack resources. What we need most now is patience,” said Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya at the same press briefing.
He explained that the moved earth amounting to about 35 million tons, a figure that triples earlier estimates, cascaded in three directions. The 60 excavators on site manage to remove between 1,000 and 1,500 truckloads of soil each day.
According to Anadolu Agency, three of the workers might be buried in an open-pit manganese mine about 35 meters deep, while the other six are being searched for at another location.
The nine workers were trapped when they were sent to inspect an area recently identified as at risk of collapse due to observed cracks and evacuated as a precaution.
Bayraktar reiterated that water and soil samples are still being taken to prevent potential environmental contamination from cyanide used at the mine, but so far no toxic substances have been detected.
The landslide originated in terrain used for leaching ore extracted from the open-pit mine, a process in which large quantities of crushed ore are piled up in the open and irrigated with a cyanide solution that separates the gold from the rock.
If cyanide were to leak into the nearby Euphrates River, just three kilometers from the incident site, it would pose a major environmental disaster. However, Bayraktar stressed that there is currently no sign of such danger.
Of the eight company executives detained over possible responsibility for the disaster, two are free on charges while six have been remanded in custody, Anadolu reports.
NTV reported that among those detained is British national Iain Ronald Guille, a representative of the Canadian multinational SSR Mining, which holds 80 percent of the Anagold mining company owner of the affected mine, with the remaining 20 percent held by the Turkish group Calik Holding.