Myanmar: After Landslide 1 Dead, Over 80 Feared Missing In Hpakant Jade Mine

These disasters have become come common in Hpakant jade mines, last year heavy rainfall triggered a massive landslide in Hpakant that entombed nearly 300 miners.

Representational Image (Source: AFP)

New Delhi: In a horrific incident, one died & dozens of people are feared to be missing after a landslide on Wednesday at a jade mine in northern Myanmar, according to an AFP report.

The landslide occurred around 4 am in the Hpakant area of Kachin State there were fears that about 80-100 people had been swept into a lake by mining waste. Around 200 rescuers were searching to recover bodies, with some using boats to search for the dead in a nearby lake, he added.

"About 70-100 people are missing" following the landslide that struck around 4:00 am, said rescue team member Ko Nyi.

"We've sent 25 injured people to the hospital while we've found one dead."

There were reporters in local news media that dozens appeared to be missing from the area in Hpakant, which is the centre of Myanmar's secretive jade industry.

Local outlet Kachin News Group said 20 miners had been killed in the landslide. However, Myanmar's fire services said its personnel from Hpakant and the nearby town of Lone Khin were involved in the rescue effort but gave no figures of dead or missing.

As these mines are poorly regulated, such incidents are tragically very common, impoverished workers from across Myanmar in search of gems mostly for export to China. Myanmar produces 90% of the world's jade.

A February military coup also effectively extinguished any chance of reforms to the dangerous and unregulated industry initiated by ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi's government, watchdog Global Witness said in a report this year, according to AFP report.

The coup has also sparked fighting in Kachin state between the Kachin Independence Army, which has waged a decades-long insurgency, and the Myanmar military, the report added. 

When Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi ousted the government in 2016, she pledged to clean up the industry, but according to activists not much has changed, a Reuters report said. 

Last year heavy rainfall triggered a massive landslide in Hpakant that entombed nearly 300 miners.