Workers at a jade mine in Myanmar's Kachin State. Photo adapted from: Yin Min Tun / Wikimedia Commons
Workers at a jade mine in Myanmar's Kachin State. Photo adapted from: Yin Min Tun / Wikimedia Commons

A waste of lives

The scramble for jade in Myanmar's Kachin State.
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One minute you are crouching on a steep slope, examining a round stone clutched in the palm of your hand. Then a rumbling deluge of mud, boulders, gravel. Crushing you and everything you came here for, the illusion of jade treasure, the struggle for bare survival. And you have disappeared.

The ongoing catastrophe in the Hpakant jade-mining region of Kachin State in northern Myanmar produces a grim roll call. 21 November 2015: more than 200 workers buried in their campsite. 25 December 2015: "waste mound" kills 50.  6 January 2016: 20 killed. 25 January 2016: 100 killed.  4 April 2018: 6 killed in landslide. 4 May 2018: at least 17 dead. 14 July, 2018: at least 15 confirmed dead, survivors believe over 100 buried. 24 July 2018: 27 "feared dead." 12 February 2019: 6 killed in "cliff collapse."

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