Landslide at Myanmar jade
mine kills more than 120 people
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| Rescue operation under way at a landslide in Myanmar's Kachin State on July 2, 2020 (ANSA) |
At least 123 people have been killed in a landslide in a
jade mine in northern Myanmar, Thursday morning.
By Vatican News
The landslide in the Hpakant area of Kachin State is 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, while the Myanmar Fire Service Department,
which coordinates rescue and other emergency services, put the total at
126.
Toll could be higher
Maung Myint, a lawmaker from Hpakant earlier said 113 bodies
were recovered and 54 injured sent to hospitals. He fears the toll could
be nearly twice as high.
Footage of the tragedy on social media showed a massive pile
of mine waste sliding down a slope and smashing into a lake below, sending the
water and mud surging high around its rim and down the valley.
Emergency workers had to slog through heavy mud under rain
to retrieve bodies by wrapping them in plastic sheets, which served as makeshift
body bags.
Myanmar’s jade industry world’s biggest
Hpakant area, which is 950 kilometers north of Myanmar’s
biggest city, Yangon, is the centre of the world’s biggest and most lucrative
jade mining industry. Myanmar is the world biggest source of jade, an industry
reportedly worth more than $30 billion.
Victims - residue scavengers
Accidents at such mining sites causing multiple casualties
are not rare. The victims are normally freelance miners who settle near giant
mounds of discarded earth that have been mined in bulk by heavy machinery. The
freelance miners who scavenge for bits of stray jade usually work and live at
the base of the mounds of earth, which become particularly unstable during the
rainy season.
More than 100 people were reported killed at Myanmar’s
mining sites last year. A November 2015 accident at a jade mine in Kachin
also left 113 dead and was considered the country’s worst.
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.
Profiting only a few
Local activists have complained that 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, the industry generated
about $31 billion in 2014, with most of the wealth going to individuals and
companies tied to Myanmar’s former military rulers.
Mining also plays a role in the decades-old struggle of
ethnic minority groups in Myanmar’s borderlands to take more control of their
own destiny and resources. Kachin insurgents have been engaged in intermittent
combat with government troops.
The area where members of the Kachin minority are dominant
is poverty stricken despite having huge deposits of rubies as well as
jade. The Kachin people believe they are not getting a fair share of the
profits from deals that the central government makes with mining companies that
critics charge are cronies of the military - a major player in the country’s
administration.
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