126 die in Myanmar landslide
A LANDSLIDE at a jade mine in northern Myanmar killed at least 126 people, with more feared dead, authorities said yesterday, after a heap of mining waste collapsed into a lake and buried many workers under mud and water.
The miners were collecting stones in the jade-rich Hpakant area of Kachin state – the centre of Myanmar’s secretive jade industry – when the “muddy wave” crashed onto them, after heavy rain, the fire service department said in a Facebook post.
By late afternoon rescue workers had recovered 126 bodies, the department said, but more were missing.
“Other bodies are in the mud,” Tar Lin Maung, a local official with the information ministry, told Reuters by phone.
“The numbers are going to rise.” Deadly landslides and other accidents are common in the poorly regulated mines of Hpakant, which draw impoverished workers from across Myanmar in search of gems mostly for export to China.
But yesterday’s accident was the worst in over five years.
About 100 people were killed in a 2015 collapse which strengthened calls to regulate the industry.
Another 50 died in 2019.
Many of those killed are freelance “jade pickers” who scour tailings – the residue from mining – for gemstones overlooked by larger operators.
One good piece of jade, worth tens of thousands of dollars, could transform their lives.
Video footage on social media showed frantic miners racing uphill to escape as a towering pile of black waste cascaded into a turquoise lake, churning up a tsunami-like wave of mud.
Photos showed rows of dead bodies laid out on a hill, covered by tarpaulin.
“There’s no hope for the families to get compensation as they were freelance miners.”
The government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi pledged to clean up the industry when it took power in 2016, but activists say little has changed.
Official sales of jade in Myanmar were worth €671 million (R13bn) in 2016-17, according to data published by the government as part of an Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. Reuters