YANGON: At least 27 people are feared dead following a landslide at a jade mine in northern Myanmar, police said Wednesday, as heavy rains hampered the search for survivors.
The poorly-regulated and notoriously corrupt multibillion-dollar industry in remote Kachin state is frequently hit by fatal disasters, and the victims often come from poor ethnic communities.
The latest disaster hit remote Set Mu sub-township early Tuesday following heavy rains in the area, burying at least 27 people, mostly from the impoverished ethnic Rawang group, local police officer Aung Zin Kyaw said.
“We haven’t found any dead bodies yet. We will search again today with the Red Cross and fire brigade,” he said.
With only about 70,000 members, the mainly-Christian Rawang are one of Myanmar’s smallest ethnic groups and live predominantly in the mountainous north, with many employed in the informal mining sector.
With few regulations and little oversight in the hugely profitable sector — mostly fueled by soaring Chinese demand — conditions are often dangerous, especially during the wet months.
“Before the rainy season, the people looking for jade were destroying the land. Now it is raining and the ground is not stable and very muddy,” local resident Shwe Thein said Wednesday.
Dozens of people have been killed by landslides this year in the Hpakant region of Kachin state, where a major incident in November 2015 left more than 100 dead.
Watchdog Global Witness estimated that the jade industry was worth some $31 billion in 2014, a huge proportion of which did not reach state coffers.
Jade and other natural resources, including timber, gold and amber, help finance both sides in a decades-long conflict between ethnic Kachin rebels and the military as they battle to control the mines and the income they bring.
Since a 17-year ceasefire broke down in 2011, more than 100,000 people have been displaced due to the fighting, many multiple times.
Civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on coming to power in 2016 that ending the country’s myriad conflicts was her top priority but an ongoing peace process is yet to yield any significant results.
At least 27 feared dead in Myanmar jade mine landslide
At least 27 feared dead in Myanmar jade mine landslide
- The latest disaster hit remote Set Mu sub-township early Tuesday following heavy rains in the area, burying at least 27 people
- Watchdog Global Witness estimated that the jade industry was worth some $31 billion in 2014, a huge proportion of which did not reach state coffers
Sri Lanka hospital releases 22 rescued Iranian sailors
- Sri Lankan authorities said the survivors from the Dena were being handled according to international humanitarian law
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka discharged from hospital 22 Iranian sailors who were plucked from life rafts after their warship was sunk by a US submarine, officials said Sunday.
The sailors were treated at Karapitiya Hospital in the southern port city of Galle since Wednesday after the IRIS Dena was torpedoed just outside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters.
“Another 10 are still undergoing treatment,” a medical officer at the hospital told AFP.
He said the bodies of 84 Iranians retrieved from the Indian Ocean were also at the hospital.
Those discharged from hospital overnight had been taken to a beach resort in the same district.
Sri Lankan authorities said the survivors from the Dena were being handled according to international humanitarian law, and the government had contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross for assistance.
The island is also providing safe haven for another 219 Iranian sailors from a second ship, the IRIS Bushehr, that was allowed to berth a day after the Dena was sunk.
Sailors from the Bushehr have been moved to a Sri Lanka Navy camp at Welisara, just north of the capital Colombo, and their ship taken over by Sri Lanka’s navy.
Sri Lanka announced it was taking the Bushehr to the north-eastern port of Trincomalee, but an engine failure and other technical and administrative issues had delayed the movement, a navy spokesman said.
Sri Lanka has denied claims that it was under pressure from Washington not to allow the Iranians to return home, and said Colombo will be guided solely by international law and its own domestic legislation.
A US State Department spokesperson said the disposition of the Bushehr crew and Iranian sailors rescued at sea was up to Sri Lanka.
“The United States, of course, respects and recognizes Sri Lanka’s sovereignty in the handling of this situation,” the spokesperson told AFP in Washington.
India, meanwhile, said Saturday that it had allowed a third Iranian warship, the IRIS Lavan, to dock in one of its ports on “humane” grounds after it too reported engine problems.
The three ships were part of a multi-national fleet review held by India before the war in the Middle East started last week.
“I think it was the humane thing to do, and I think we were guided by that principle,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Saturday.
The Lavan docked in the south-west Indian port of Kochi on Wednesday.
“A lot of the people on board were young cadets. They have disembarked and are in a nearby facility,” Jaishankar said.
