At least 123 people killed in deadly mine collapse in Myanmar

At least 123 people have been killed in a landslide at a jade mine in northern Myanmar – the worst in a series of deadly accidents at such sites in recent years.

A statement from the ministry of information said 123 bodies had been recovered from the site of yesterday’s landslide in Hpakant. The Myanmar fire service department, which co-ordinates rescues and other emergency services, put the total at 126.

“The jade miners were smothered by a wave of mud,” a statement from the fire service said.

A crowd gathered in the rain around corpses shrouded in blue-and-red plastic sheets, laid in a row on the ground.

Emergency workers had to slog through heavy mud to retrieve bodies by wrapping them in the plastic sheets, which served as makeshift body bags that were then hungoncrossedwoodenpoles shouldered by the recovery teams.

Khin Maung Myint, an MP from Hpakant, earlier said that in addition to the dead, another 54 people were injured and sent to hospitals.

The Hpakant area in Kachin state is 600 miles north of Myanmar’s biggest city Yangon and is the centre of the world’s biggest and most lucrative jade mining industry.

Yesterday’s death toll surpasses that of a November 2015 accident that left 113 dead and was previously considered the country’s worst. In that case, the victims died when a 60m-high mountain of earth and waste discarded by several mines tumbled in the middle of the night, enveloping more than 70 huts where miners slept.

Those killed in such accidents are usually freelance miners who settle near giant mounds of discarded earth that has been excavated by heavy machinery. The freelancers who scavenge for bits of jade usually work and live at the base of the mounds of earth, which become particularly unstable during the rainy season.

Most scavengers are unregistered migrants from other areas, making it hard to determine exactly how many people are actually missing after such accidents and in many cases leaving the relatives of the dead in their home villages unaware of their fate.

Local activists have complained the profitability of jade mining has led businesses and the government to neglect enforcing already very weak regulations in the industry.

According to Global Witness, a London-based group that investigates misuse of revenues from natural resources, Myanmar’s jade industry generated about $31 billion (£25bn) in 2014, with most of the wealth going to individuals and companies tied to the country’s former military rulers.