Last weekend there was another similar accident that left six dead in the same mining complex, the largest in the world dedicated to jade.
One person died and between 70 and 100 more were missing this Wednesday (12/22/2021) after the collapse of a jade mine in northern Burma (Myanmar), local media reported.
The landslide occurred during the early morning in the remote town of Hpakant, in Kachin state, and could have washed away more than a hundred people, according to the newspaper The Irrawaddy.
Last weekend there was another similar accident that left six dead in the same mining complex, the largest in the world dedicated to jade, reported the local portal Mizzima.
These types of events are frequent in Hpakant, where miners work in extremely precarious conditions.
In July 2020, an avalanche buried more than 160 miners as they were extracting the coveted jade from excavated slopes in torrential rain, and a year earlier at least 54 people were killed in a landslide elsewhere in the complex. miner, located about 800 kilometers north of the capital, Naipyidó.
ade mines, to which the foreign press is denied access, have become a magnet for thousands of impoverished Burmese from all over the country, but in most cases the benefits are low and the risks high.
Burma is the world’s largest producer of jadeite, a prized variety of jade that is mined mainly in the Kachin Mountains and is especially coveted in neighboring China, where most of the exports go.