This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.
A mudslide at a Myanmar jade mine swept over a village on Monday and 12 people were confirmed killed with dozens missing, residents of the area in Kachin state said — the latest disaster in the unregulated sector in which scores of people are killed every year.
The mud swept through Sa Paut village in Hpakant township before dawn on Monday, after a pond full of jade-mining slurry overflowed, residents said.
The bodies of four children and eight adults had been found by late morning, but dozens were missing, residents said.
“The damage was worse as it happened at night when everyone was sleeping,” a Hpakant resident told Radio Free Asia.
“There were eight bodies found by 11:30 this morning … but there may be more dead.”
Residents said about 50 homes were engulfed by mud and many villagers had joined a rescue effort.
The disaster highlights lax safety measures at the area in Hpakant where the U.K.-based rights group Global Witness estimated that nearly 400,000 people rely on scavenging precious stones, most of whom work under unsafe conditions.
Poor oversight of mining operations has worsened in the turmoil that engulfed Myanmar since the military overthrew an elected government in a February 2021 coup d’etat.
The Hpakant area has been captured by the anti-junta Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, which relies on the mining of jade, as well as rare earths and gold, and their export to neighboring China, to finance its armed campaign for self-determination.
A spokesman for the KIA, Colonel Naw Bu, said the KIA had tried to improve conditions at the jade mines but with little success.
‘Neither liquid nor solid’
There’s no reliable tally of people killed in Myanmar’s mines but accidents are all too common.
More than 190 people were killed in a landslide at the Wai Khar jade mining site in Hapkant in 2022. Dozens have been killed in rare-earth mining accidents in Kachin state over the past year.
According to reports compiled by RFA, about 600 people were killed between 2008 and 2024 in more than 10 landslides in Hpakant township. Many deaths go unreported.
Another resident of Hpakant said the Monday disaster followed a build-up of water in an old jade mine.
“Rainwater gets into the old pits and builds up as there’s nowhere for it to flow,” said the second resident, who also declined to be identified for safety reasons.
“It’s neither liquid nor solid … and it flows downstream when the lip of the deep pit can’t take any more pressure.”
Bombing kills 8
Elsewhere in Hpakant township, at least eight people were killed and several were wounded when the military’s air force bombed San Hkar and Ma Sut Yang on Monday, residents told RFA.
In Kachin state’s Tanai township, 15 people were killed in an air raid on a gold mine on Saturday, residents in the area said.
RFA tried to telephone the military’s spokesman for Kachin state, Moe Min Thein, for information on the situation but he did not answer.
