Missing workers’ truck found at landslide-hit Erzincan mine

ERZİNCAN

Search teams have reached the pickup truck used by the miners trapped beneath the soil before the landslide hit the mining site in the eastern province of Erzincan, forming the first trace found over a month after the incident.

The development came after 32 days of no trace of the nine miners trapped underground following a landslide at the gold mine in İliç district of Erzincan on Feb. 13.

Authorities informed that the found pickup truck was assessed to have been used by the three missing miners, yet no evidence regarding the missing miners was discovered during the search conducted around the vehicle.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya earlier said that the volume of the collapsed mass was estimated to be 10 million cubic meters, with Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar noting that trucks would need to make 400,000 trips to evacuate all the sliding soil.

The soil that slid during the disaster was a cyanide-containing waste generated in the process of extracting gold, adding that the primary cause of the accident was the excessive accumulation of material in the waste storage area and delayed precautions against cracks formed due to capacity overflow in the area.

With the arrests of two engineers from the operating company earlier this month, the number of arrests increased to eight, including the foreign company’s Canadian representative.