At least 54 jade miners in northern Myanmar were believed to be dead on Tuesday after a huge mound of tailings collapsed into an open-pit mine, burying workers and heavy equipment, officials said.

The disaster occurred late Monday night in the remote Hpakant area of Kachin State, where miners produce billions of dollars’ worth of jade each year under harsh working conditions.

Rescuers began searching for survivors after dawn on Tuesday, but officials said there was little chance that anyone would be found alive at the mine, which is about 100 feet deep and covers about five acres.

Three bodies were recovered by late afternoon, said Tin Soe, a member of Parliament who represents the area.

“We don’t hold out much hope because the bodies are buried under mud and it’s really difficult to retrieve them,” said U Naing, a supervisor for Myanmar Thura, one of the companies operating the mine.

Landslides are common in the jade mining area and can claim 100 or more lives at a time. Dozens were swept away by a landslide in Hpakant last year, and at least 120 were buried in 2015 after the collapse of a mound of tailings, a mudlike waste byproduct of mining.

Kachin is Myanmar’s northernmost state and borders China and India. Much of Myanmar has been racked by fighting between the military and ethnic rebels, but the lucrative jade mining area has largely remained under government control.

According to the anti-corruption group Global Witness, in 2014 Myanmar’s jade business was worth as much as $31 billion, almost half the country’s gross domestic product.

Paul Donowitz, the campaign leader for Myanmar at Global Witness, said disasters keep occurring in Hpakant because the jade sector places profit before human life and the government is unwilling or incapable of regulating it.

“This preventable tragedy once again underscores the urgent need to bring accountability to the country’s jade industry and to completely shut down large-scale jade mining operations which continue to kill hundreds every year, fuel violent armed conflict and devastate the local environment,” he said.

Saw Nang reported from Mandalay, Myanmar, and Richard C. Paddock from Jakarta, Indonesia.

Source: The New York Times

BDST:  1134 HRS, APRIL 24, 2019

AH