https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
A rescue effort to find nine employees of SSR Mining Inc. who went missing after a landslide at a gold mine in Turkey last week has been suspended, as authorities try to prevent an environmental catastrophe.
On Feb. 13, a landslide slammed into SSR Mining’s Çöpler mine in Turkey, hitting the company’s onsite heap leach gold processing plant. Despite a search and rescue effort involving more than 400 members of Turkey’s national disaster relief agency, the missing workers have not been found.
SSR said in a statement on Tuesday that the Turkish government had suspended its search for the missing employees to focus on stabilizing the heap leach area. Heap leaching involves treating mined ore with highly toxic cyanide to extract the precious metal. On Feb. 18, the company said that Turkish officials have been monitoring surface water, groundwater, soil, and air quality, and had found no evidence of contamination.
All operations at Çöpler in east central Turkey were suspended after the landslide, and the government promptly revoked SSR’s environmental permit, as authorities started an investigation into the company. Eight employees of the company were detained by authorities as part of that investigation, and SSR said on Feb. 18 that several SSR representatives were subsequently charged.
For the rest of this article: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-turkey-suspends-search-for-ssr-mining-employees-who-went-missing-after/