Death toll rises to 7 in mine disaster

Search and rescue crews have recovered the body of another miner Tuesday, six days after a landslide buried 16 workers in a copper mine in southeastern Turkey.

The unidentified worker's corpse was discovered as excavators dug the site in Şirvan, a district of the Siirt province. Some 40 excavators, trucks and bulldozers were deployed to the area after tons of soil buried workers alive on Thursday evening. The bodies of six workers have been recovered since then, while the sheer amount of soil the miners are trapped under have further complicated search and rescue efforts. Crews have been working around the clock to find the remaining nine workers, who were mostly excavator operators working in the open-pit mine.

The government has been dispatching a minister every day to the area, while Labor Minister Mehmet Müezzinoğlu visited the disaster site on Tuesday to personally comfort the families and inspect the search and rescue efforts. Müezzinoğlu told reporters every state-run agency, from the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) to the Red Crescent and Health Ministry, was working at the site to locate the miners and help their families. He said they had to be cautious about the safety of rescue crews working on dangerous terrain that is exposed to a new landslide risk. "We want to be hopeful but this is a process where hopes are fading," Müezzinoğlu said.