A village that has become known as Turkey's 'cancer city' could be knocked down and buried under 13 feet of dirt in an attempt to halt high rates of mesothelioma, lung problems and cancer among residents of the region.
Anatolia, Turkey: Tuzkoy village in central Anatolia has become known as Turkey's cancer city Photo: PHOTOLIBRARY
Tuzkoy village in central Anatolia, Turkey, is surrounded by large deposits of erionite, a fibrous mineral found in volcanic rocks.
The main cause of mesothelioma, a painful lung cancer, is erionite dust.
Murat Tuncer, chair of the unit for the fight against cancer in the health ministry, told the Harriyet Daily News & Economic Review that 46 people from the village had developed the disease this year, compared to a total of 65 in the country as a whole.
The death rate of people with mesothelioma was 700 to 800 per cent higher in Tuzkoy compared to rates throughout the world, he said.
Amid calls for the village to be destroyed, Mr Tuncer said that burying the buildings was not the only option and that people should simply be kept away from them.
There are already plans under way to move 80 per cent of the town's residents to new homes built one mile from the site of the eronite deposits.
Once people had been transferred to "New Tuzkoy", authorities would ensure that trees were planted on contaminated land to prevent erosion or the airborne transfer of the mineral, he said.
Experts have been working in the village for five years to identify the areas with the largest intensity of erionite. Mr Tuncer also said he expected the rest of the inhabitants to move into new houses within the next year.
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