Rescuers in northern Myanmar yesterday retrieved two more bodies after a landslide at an illegally run jade mine and warned that dozens of people feared missing are likely dead.
Rescuers pulled two more bodies from a nearby lake, taking the confirmed death toll to three after one casualty was found the previous day before the operation was cut short due to fog and overnight rain.
Authorities had initially said that at least 70 more were feared missing after the landslide struck early on Wednesday, but later added they were still trying to confirm the number of those unaccounted for.
Photo: Myanmar Fire Services Department / Reuters
One of the men, a 23-year-old, came from Yinmar Pin, hundreds of kilometers away in central Myanmar, they said.
The miners at Hpakant travel from across Myanmar to scratch a living picking through the piles of waste left by industrial mining firms in hopes of finding an overlooked hunk of jade.
The weather had cleared, the Myanmar Rescue Organization’s Ko Jack said, adding that six rescue teams were searching for survivors.
“The search is going fine and no difficulty as it’s sunny now,” Ko Jack said.
However, Ko Nyi, another rescuer, said that the outlook was grim.
“If the dead bodies don’t float today, they will appear in the following days,” Ko Nyi said.
Hundreds of diggers had returned to Hpakant during the rainy season to prospect in the treacherous open-cast mines, despite a junta ban on digging until March, a local rights advocate said.
Rescuers said that increased pressure from the weight of dumped soil and rock had pushed the ground downhill into the nearby lake.
Jade and other abundant natural resources in northern Myanmar — including timber, gold and amber — have helped finance both sides of a decades-long civil war between ethnic Kachin insurgents and the military.
Civilians are frequently trapped in the middle of the fight for control of the mines and their lucrative revenues, with a rampant drugs and arms trade further curdling the conflict.
Last year, heavy rainfall triggered a massive landslide in Hpakant that entombed nearly 300 people.
Watchdog Global Witness estimated that the industry was worth about US$31 billion in 2014.
However, corruption means that very little reaches state coffers.
A military coup in February also effectively extinguished any chance of reforms to the dangerous and unregulated industry initiated by ousted Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government, a Global Witness report said earlier this year.
The coup has also sparked fighting in Kachin State between local insurgents and the Burmese military, the watchdog said.
Wednesday’s disaster “is a haunting reminder that lives too often come second to profit in the jade mines of Hpakant,” said Hanna Hindstrom, senior campaigner for Myanmar at Global Witness.
“As the military is busy turning the sector into a financial lifeline for its illegitimate regime, once again miners are paying the ultimate price,” Hindstrom said.
Young Chinese, many who fear age discrimination in their workplace after turning 35, are increasingly starting “one-person companies” that have artificial intelligence (AI) do most of the work. Smaller start-ups are already in vogue in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, with rapidly advancing AI tools seen as a welcome teammate even as they threaten layoffs at existing firms. More young people in China are subscribing to the model, as cities pledge millions of dollars in funding and rent subsidies for such ventures, in alignment with Beijing’s political goal of “technological self-reliance.” “The one-person company is a product of the AI era,” said Karen Dai
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
RSS