A landslide unleashed by heavy rains killed at least 162 people Thursday at a jade mine in Myanmar.
"The jade miners were smothered by a wave of mud," said a statement from the Myanmar Fire Services Department on Facebook.
The department, which coordinates rescues and other emergency services, announced about 12 hours after the morning disaster that 162 bodies had been recovered, according to The Associated Press. Fifty-four injured people were taken to hospitals, AP reported. The tolls announced by other state agencies and media lagged behind the fire agency.
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The landslide happened in the Hpakant township in Kachin state on Myanmar's northern border with China. The poverty-stricken area has lucrative deposits of jade and rubies.
Photos from the area showed rescuers gathered around what appeared to be a lake at the bottom of steep, muddy hills.
A miner from the area, Maung Khaing, told Reuters he was about to take a photo of a huge pile of waste that was about to collapse when people began shouting, "Run, run!"
"Within a minute, all the people at the bottom [of the hill] just disappeared," he told the news agency by phone.
The people killed Thursday were freelancers scavenging for jade stones in waste left by a larger mining company, Than Hlaing, a member of a local group helping at the scene, told Reuters. She said about 100 people were still missing and 30 had been hospitalized.
The deadly landslide formed in an area that had seen up to 6 inches of rain in the past several days. Rescue operations Thursday had to be stopped because of more heavy rain.
Hlaing said a local official had warned people not to go to the mine on Thursday because of the bad weather.
Freelance miners, who are often poor, unregistered migrants from other areas, live at the base of huge mounds of earth left by large mining operations, the Associated Press reported. The mounds of discarded earth become unstable in the rainy season.
Last year, more than 50 workers were buried in a mudslide in Hpakant after a lake collapsed at a jade mine.
In 2015, more than 100 people were killed in Hpakant when a mound collapsed onto the huts of sleeping workers.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
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