Saturday 26 December 2015

Landslide kills at least five at mine in Kachin State, Myanmar.

Five people have been confirmed dead and as many as fifty moe may be missing following a landslide at a jade mine at Hpakant in Kachin State, Myanmar, on Friday 25 December 2015. The precise number of people involved is unclear because the event happened on a spoil heap where artisanal miners were sifting through tailings from a larger mine in the hope of finding fragments of jade, and the majority of people in this industry are migrant workers from the surrounding countryside, not registered with any local authority.

Rescue workers at the site of the 25 December 2015 Hpakant landslide. Getty Images.

Myanmar is the world's largest producer of jade, though much of this is produced (along with other precious and semi-precious minerals such as amber) at unregulated (and often illegal) artisanal mines in the north of the country, from where it is smuggled into neighbouring China. Accidents at such mines are extremely common, due to the more-or-less total absence of any safety precautions at the site. At many sites this is made worse by the unregulated use of explosives to break up rocks, often leading to the weakening of rock faces, which can then collapse without warning.

See also...

http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/hundreds-feared-dead-following.htmlHundreds feared dead following landslide at Myanmar jade mine.                                    One hundred and five people have now been confirmed dead and over a hundred are still thought to be missing following a landslide at a jade mine at Hpakant in Kachin State, Myanmar on Saturday 21 November 2015...
http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/rockslide-kills-at-least-nine-at.htmlRockslide kills at least nine at Myanmar jade mine.                                                            Nine people have been confirmed dead and about twenty more are thought to still be missing following a rockslide on a spill heap at a jade mine at Hpakant in Kachin State, Myanmar, on Monday 20 March 2015. All the people caught in the landslide are understood...

Two people are known to have died and around 40 more are missing following a landslide at a jade mine at Hpakant in Kachin Province in northern Myanmar on...

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