An 800-person rescue operation is under way to save at least nine workers trapped in a gold mine that was engulfed by a massive landslide in eastern Turkey.

The landslide struck the Copler mine in the town of Ilic in Turkey‘s mountainous Erzincan province on Tuesday.

Footage showed a huge mass of earth rushing down a gully, overrunning everything in its path.

Interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said the landslide involved a mound of soil extracted from the mine.

Some 800 search and rescue personnel, including police and military teams, mine rescuers and volunteers, have been deployed in the operation.

Other workers at the mine also joined the efforts to rescue their colleagues, while families of the missing waited for news at an area close to the mine.

An investigation into the disaster has been launched.

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Cyanide risk

The landslide may also result in significant environmental risks, according to an expert.

Geologist Suleyman Pampal said the soil that formed the landslide had been processed for gold and may contain dangerous substances such as cyanide, which are used to extract gold.

He also warned of a threat to the nearby Euphrates River.

The environment ministry said that a stream leading to the river was closed to prevent water pollution.

The Copler gold mine was previously shut in 2020 following a cyanide leak into the Euphrates, which stretches through Turkey, Syria and Iraq.

The mine reopened two years later after the company was fined and a clean-up operation was completed.

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Turkey has a poor mine safety record. An explosion at the Amasra coal mine on the Black Sea coast in 2022 killed 41 workers.

The country’s worst mining disaster took place in 2014 at a coal mine in Soma, western Turkey, where 301 people were killed.

Engineers warned after those incidents that safety risks in mines were frequently ignored and inspections not adequately carried out.

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