(Hpakant, Burma) More than 160 miners were killed Thursday in a gigantic landslide in jade mines in northern Burma, the worst such disaster in recent years.
France Media Agency
The searches, complicated by the night, continued on Thursday evening and the balance sheet could get even heavier.
Masses of rock fell into a lake after heavy showers, causing waves of mud which submerged a valley, in the canton of Hpakant, near the Chinese border, according to images broadcast on social networks.
The bodies of 162 minors were at this stage found, according to the firefighters. 54 injured were transported to hospitals in the region.
"After the mine collapsed [...], I saw people in the lake. Some have managed to swim to the shore, "AFP Kyaw Min, a villager who lives nearby, told AFP. Others have been swallowed up.
The victims were working on the mine site despite a warning from the authorities urging them not to enter it due to heavy rain, local police said. Without the warning, "there could have been hundreds of deaths," she said.
Rescue workers spent most of the day searching for the victims, using tires as makeshift rafts.
"We could only extract the floating bodies," said police commissioner Than Win Aung.
The rescue operations are a real challenge: "we had to work in torrents" with the fear of a new landslide.
The UN said in a statement "deeply saddened by the terrible loss of life".
Each year, dozens of people are killed in jade mines. This is due to the very perilous working conditions, especially during the monsoon season.
In addition to 100 people were killed in a landslide. In 2019, a mudslide claimed the life of 50 people.
Billions of dollars
Prosperous but unregulated, the mining industry in Burma employs many undeclared workers and weighs tens of billions of dollars, according to the NGO Global Witness.
The country is the world's leading producer of jade, which is then widely sold in neighboring China.
And the region of Hpakant, poor and difficult to access, has taken on the appearance of a lunar landscape as it has been transformed by these mines.
For years, these have been operated by major private companies in partnership with Myanmar Gems Enterprise (MGE), a state-owned enterprise that issues mining licenses.
They were digging large plots up to hundreds of meters deep, causing significant damage to the environment.
To curb this limitless exploitation, the Burmese government imposed a moratorium on new mining licenses in 2016.
Companies now have to comply with supposedly stricter environmental regulations to obtain the right to exploit and cannot dig areas larger than two hectares.
Result, many large mines have closed and are no longer monitored, allowing the return of many independent miners. Coming from disadvantaged ethnic communities, they operate almost covertly in these abandoned sites.
Thursday's disaster was "preventable," Hann Hindstrom, who works for Global Witness, told AFP. There is an "urgent need" to further regulate this industry.
Abundant natural resources in northern Burma - including jade, precious wood, gold and amber - help finance both sides of a decades-long civil war between insurgents of the Kachin ethnic group and the Burmese military.