A landslide of a mound of mining waste has killed at least 14 people in northern Myanmar’s jade mining region.
An official in Kachin state’s Hpakant township says the Friday morning accident also left six people injured and an unknown number believed missing. A search is continuing.
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Hpakant, 950 kilometers (600 miles) north of Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon, is the epicenter of the world’s biggest and most lucrative jade mining industry. Jade is normally mined by heavy equipment that generates huge mounds of waste soil, which easily causes landslides.
People often settle near the mounds to scavenge for jade in the precariously high piles of waste. Fatal accidents are not rare and more than 100 people were killed in a single landslide in November 2015.
