Çöpler is a
village
A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...
in the
İliç District
İliç District is a Districts of Turkey, district of the Erzincan Province of Turkey. Its seat is the town of İliç. of
Erzincan Province
Erzincan Province (; ; ) is a Provinces of Turkey, province in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. In Turkey, its capital is also called Erzincan. Its area is 11,815 km2, and its population is 239,223 (2022).
Geography
Erzincan is trav ...
in Turkey. The village is populated by
Kurds
Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...
of the
Şikakî tribe and had a population of 289 in 2022.
Mining
In 1999, a gold-silver-copper ore deposit was explored near the village. The
Çöpler mine
The Çöpler mine () is a gold mine located in Erzincan Province, eastern Turkey. It is owned and operated by the Anagold Mining Inc., established in 2009. Explored in 1999, it is on an epithermal gold-silver-copper ore deposit, one of the larges ...
started production of gold in 2010.
Mining accidents occurred in June 2022 when a leak in the
cyanide
In chemistry, cyanide () is an inorganic chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom.
Ionic cyanides contain the cyanide anion . This a ...
pipeline polluted the environment,
and in
February 2024 when a large mass (estimated at 10 million cubic metres)
of
heap leach material slid down into the valley, and nine miners were trapped under the landslide.
References
Villages in İliç District
Kurdish settlements in Erzincan Province
{{İliç-geo-stub