ISTANBUL: Hundreds of Turkish rescuers searched through a cyanide-laced field Tuesday for nine gold mine workers who were swallowed by a massive landslide that rolled over their open pit.Images from the scene showed the landslide sweeping across a valley and crashing into a road where some of the workers were travelling by vehicle.Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said there was no news from nine out of 667 employees of the mine, which is in the remote Ilic district of the eastern Erzincan province.”We installed our (rescue) vehicles, our generators, and our night lighting equipment,” Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told state-run TRT television. “We have only one wish: to be able to give good news to the families of these brothers.”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.”Cyanide soil collapsed” at the site, Independent Mining Labor Union representative Basaran Aksu told Turkish media.”Good specialist equipment must be used by expert teams when responding to cyanide sites,” Aksu added.”The work may take a very long time because of the cyanide field,” which is reported to be one Turkey’s largest.
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