At least 70 people are missing and one person has died in a landslide in northern Myanmar, a paramedic said.
The medic said that there are “70 to 100 people missing from a landslide that occurred around 4 am” in a jade mine in Kayah State.
He added, “We took 25 wounded people to the hospital, while we found one dead.”
About 200 paramedics are participating in research, some of them on boats, in an attempt to retrieve bodies from a nearby lake, according to the same source.
And landslide accidents often occur in this poor and rugged region, whose landscapes have become similar to the surface of the moon due to the intensive activities of mining groups at the expense of the environment.
Heavy monsoon rains caused the worst disaster in the year 2020, with 300 miners buried in a landslide in Mount Bakan, the heart of this mining region near the Chinese border.
Myanmar generates very large revenues from this gemstone, which is very popular in China, in particular.
The coup in February led to any opportunity to complete the reform of this sector undertaken by Aung San Suu Kyi, according to what Global Witness, a monitoring body, said in a report issued in 2021.
Earlier, an official with a civil society organization said that the landslide occurred at about 4 am local time in the Hpakanth district and there are fears that about 80 people were swept into a lake due to mining waste.
For its part, the “Mizzima” news portal also reported that dozens were apparently missing in the landslide.
