At least 113 people were killed Thursday in a landslide at a jade mine in northern Myanmar, the government and rescue workers said, the latest in a series of deadly accidents at the sites in recent years.
A statement from the Ministry of Information gave the death toll as 116, while Khin Maung Win, chairman of the Thingaha rescue group working at the site, said the number of the dead surpassed 113.
Khin Maung Myint, a lawmaker from Hpakant, where the accident occurred, said 54 people were injured and sent to hospitals.
Maung Khaing, a 38-year-old miner from the area, said he saw a towering pile of waste that looked on the verge of collapse and was about to take a picture when people began shouting “run, run!”
“Within a minute, all the people at the bottom [of the hill] just disappeared,” he told Reuters news agency by phone.
“I feel empty in my heart. I still have goosebumps … There were people stuck in the mud shouting for help, but no one could help them.”
Tar Lin Maung, a local official with the information ministry, said authorities had recovered more than 100 bodies.
“Other bodies are in the mud. The numbers are going to rise,” he told Reuters.
Than Hlaing, a member of a local civil society group helping in the aftermath of the disaster, said those killed were informal workers scavenging the waste left by a larger mining company.
“There’s no hope for the families to get compensation as they were freelance miners,” she said. “I don’t see any route to escape this kind of cycle. People take risks, go into landfills, as they have no choice.”
Fatal landslides are common in the poorly regulated mines of Hpakant, the victims often from impoverished communities who risk their lives hunting the translucent green gemstone.
The government of Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi pledged to clean up the industry when it took power in 2016, but activists say little has changed.
Official sales of jade in Myanmar were worth $750.4m in 2016-2017, according to data published by the government as part of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.
But experts believe the true value of the industry, which mainly exports to China, is much larger.
Northern Myanmar’s abundant natural resources – including jade, timber, gold and amber – have also helped finance both sides of a decades-long conflict between ethnic Kachin and the military.
The fight to control the mines and the revenues they bring frequently traps local civilians in the middle.
