Landslide in Myanmar death hits 100: Witness
The death toll from a landslide near a jade mine in the restive Kachin State in northern Myanmar has reportedly risen to at least 100 people, most of them villagers who were digging for green stones in a 300-meter pile of mine debris.
“I’m hearing that more than 100 people died. In some cases, entire families were lost,” a witness at the Hpakant Township said on Sunday.
An estimated 100 to 200 people are still missing, said Lamai Gum Ja, a community leader.
The collapse, which buried freelance miners digging for raw jade stones in piles of waste rubble dumped by mechanical diggers, also flattened about 50 houses at the base of the mine dump.
Search and rescue teams on Sunday were still combing through the rubble for survivors and dead bodies of the Saturday evening landslide.
Kachin, around 950 kilometers (600 miles) northeast of Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, is home to some of the world’s highest-quality jade.
Landslides are common in Hpakant, where as much as 90 percent of the world’s jade is mined.
The industry generated an estimated $31 billion in 2014.
Hpakant is an impoverished region, with bumpy dirt roads, constant electricity blackouts and a high number of heroin addicts.
In late March, at least a dozen people were killed in another landslide near jade mines in the same area.
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