Burma slide kills 162 jade miners

HPAKANT, Burma — At least 162 people were killed Thursday in a landslide at a jade mine in northern Burma, the worst in a series of deadly accidents at such sites in recent years that critics blame on the government’s failure to take action against unsafe conditions.

Burma is often called Myanmar, a name that military authorities adopted in 1989. Some nations, such as the United States and Britain, have refused to adopt the name change.

The Burma Fire Service Department, which coordinates rescues and other emergency services, announced about 12 hours after the morning disaster that 162 bodies were recovered from the landslide in Hpakant, the center of the world’s biggest and most lucrative jade mining industry.

The most detailed estimate of Burma’s jade industry said it generated about $31 billion in 2014. Hpakant is a rough and remote area in Kachin state, 600 miles north of Burma’s biggest city, Yangon.

“The jade miners were smothered by a wave of mud,” the Fire Service said. It said 54 injured people were taken to hospitals. The tolls announced by other state agencies and media lagged behind the fire agency, which was most closely involved. An unknown number of people are missing.

Those taking part in the recovery operations, which were suspended after dark, included the army and other government units and local volunteers.

The London-based environmental watchdog Global Witness said the accident “is a damning indictment of the government’s failure to curb reckless and irresponsible mining practices in Kachin state’s jade mines.”

“The government should immediately suspend large-scale, illegal and dangerous mining in Hpakant and ensure companies that engage in these practices are no longer able to operate,” it said in a statement.

Thursday’s death toll surpasses that of a November 2015 accident that left 113 dead and was previously considered the country’s worst.

In that case, the victims died when a 200-foot-high mountain of earth and waste discarded by several mines tumbled in the middle of the night, covering more than 70 huts where miners slept.

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