Myanmar
Dozens missing after landslide at Jademine
Rescue workers at the site of a landslide at a jade mine in Myanmar. photo
© Str/Xinhua/dpa
Accidents in jade mines are not uncommon in Myanmar, which is ruled authoritarian by a military junta. In a new accident, around 50 people are missing after a landslide.
After a large landslide at a jade mine in the north Myanmar’s rescue workers searched for dozens of missing people on Monday. By the evening (local time), 34 people were missing from the scene of the accident in the municipality of Hpakant in the state of Kachin with its lucrative jade deposits, as local rescue workers confirmed to the German Press Agency. Local residents spoke of around 50 people, of whom there was no trace. The incident happened on Sunday afternoon near the village of Mana.
Rescue workers also said on Monday that they had sighted two bodies from a distance but could not recover them because of the swampy ground. Eight injured people were found alive on Sunday and taken to the local hospital. Every year in Myanmar, numerous jade mine workers are killed or missing as a result of landslides.
Also on Sunday, jade seekers would have tried their luck on huge mounds of deposited earth and rubble that came from other mines. Then the masses of earth slid into a lake for reasons not yet known. “The miners fell down with the earth,” said a local resident who helped with the rescue work, the dpa. For security reasons, he wished to remain anonymous. No bodies have been recovered so far, he added. It was not raining at the time of the accident, they said.
Myanmar has been mired in political unrest since the military coup on February 1, 2021. The military is cracking down on protests, civil disobedience movements and armed resistance by anti-junta militias across the country bent on violently overthrowing the military government. According to the human rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which documents the killings and human rights abuses, at least 3,919 people have been killed and more than 24,246 people arrested since the coup.