More than 50 feared killed in landslide at Myanmar jade mine

More than 50 people were feared dead after a landslide in northern Myanmar engulfed jade miners while they were sleeping, local police said Tuesday, the latest deadly accident in a notoriously dangerous industry.

Dozens die each year in landslides caused by jade mining, a poorly regulated industry rife with corruption and sandwiched between the country's borders with China and India.

Local police described a freak accident in Kachin state on Monday night so big it created a huge "mud lake" that buried the miners as well as some 40 vehicles.

"Fifty-four people are missing in the mud," a duty officer from Hpakant township police station told AFP, asking not to be named.

"There's no way they (the missing) could have survived."

Only 2 bodies had been recovered so far.

The Ministry of Information confirmed the accident and number of missing, adding that the area was mined by Myanmar Thura Gems and Shwe Nagar Koe Kaung companies.

Myanmar Thura Gems director Hla Soe Oo told AFP by phone he was on his way to the site and had no further details. 

Local media shared images, unverified by AFP, that showed the walls of a mine stretching vertically a couple of hundred meters above a vast pool of mud, revealing only the tops of 2 yellow excavation vehicles.

Hundreds of onlookers gathered nearby, staring at the site and taking photos with their phones.

PRIZED IN CHINA 

The open jade mines in Kachin's Hpakant township have turned the remote area into a vast moonscape-like terrain.

Fatal landslides in the area are common with victims often from impoverished ethnic communities looking for scraps left behind by big firms.

A major collapse in November 2015 left more than 100 dead.

In July last year, the bodies of 23 landslide victims were recovered after a days-long search hampered by heavy monsoon rains.

The jade industry is largely driven by insatiable demand from neighboring China, where the translucent green gemstone has long been prized.

Watchdog Global Witness estimated that the industry was worth some $31 billion in 2014, although very little reaches state coffers.

Northern Myanmar's abundant natural resources -- including jade, timber, gold and amber -- help finance both sides of a decades-long civil war between ethnic Kachin insurgents and the military.

The fight to control the mines and the revenues they bring frequently traps local civilians in the middle.

A 17-year ceasefire broke down in 2011, and since then more than 100,000 people have been displaced by fighting -- some of them multiple times.

On coming to power in 2016, civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi promised to make the peace process with the country's myriad armed groups her top priority -- a pledge that has yet to yield significant results.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

At least 90 dead in landslide at Myanmar jade mine

KACHIN, Myanmar - At least 90 people have died in a huge landslide in a remote jade mining area of northern Myanmar, officials said Sunday, as search teams continued to find bodies in one of the deadliest disasters to strike the country's shadowy jade industry.

"We found 79 dead bodies on November 21 (and) 11 today so the total so far is 90," said Nilar Myint, an official from the local administrative authorities in Hpakant, northern Kachin state, adding that the rescue operation was ongoing.

Rescuers were thought to still be battling to dig through the mountains of loose rubble at the site on Sunday, in the latest deadly accident to affect Myanmar's secretive multi-billion dollar jade industry in war-torn Kachin.

Those killed were thought to have been scavenging through a mountain of waste rubble dumped by mechanical diggers used by the mining firms in the area to extract Myanmar's most valuable precious stone.

Landslides are a common hazard in the area as people living off the industry's waste pick their way across perilous mounds, driven by the hope that they might find a chunk of jade worth thousands of dollars.

Scores have been killed this year alone as local people say the mining firms, many of which are linked to the country's junta-era military elite, scale up their operations in Kachin.

Myanmar is the source of virtually all of the world's finest jadeite, an almost translucent green stone that is prized above almost all other materials in neighboring China.

In an October report, advocacy group Global Witness estimated that the value of jade produced in 2014 alone was $31 billion, the equivalent of nearly half the country's GDP.

But that figure is around 10 times the official $3.4 billion sales of the precious stone last year, in an industry that has long been shrouded in secrecy with much of the best jade thought to be smuggled directly to China.

Local people in Hpakant complain of a litany of abuses associated with the mining industry, including the frequency of accidents and land confiscations.

The area has been turned into a moonscape of environmental destruction as huge diggers gouge the earth looking for jade.
Itinerant miners are drawn from all parts of Myanmar by the promise of riches and become easy prey for drug addiction in Hpakant, where heroin and methamphetamine are cheaply available on the streets.

"Industrial-scale mining by big companies controlled by military families and companies, cronies and drug lords has made Hpakant a dystopian wasteland where locals are literally having the ground cut from under their feet," said Mike Davis of Global Witness, calling for firms to be held accountable for accidents.

The group wants the jade industry, which has long been the subject of United States sanctions, to be part of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global scheme designed to increase transparency around natural resource management.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com