At least 162 bodies have been recovered, 54 injured people have taken to local hospitals, and many others remain missing after a heap of mining waste collapsed into a lake, burying many miners at a jade mining site in the Hpakant area of Myanmar's Kachin state. According to local emergency response teams, the landslide was triggered by torrential downpours. A police spokesperson said that some people working at the mine defied a warning issued on Wednesday July 1st advising miners to not work in the area due to heavy rainfall. As of now, rescue workers and military units are still searching the area, attempting to recover bodies and locate the injured.
Myanmar's officials sales of jade is worth nearly 1 billion United States dollars per year according to data published by the nation's government as part of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, though the total jade trade is reportedly worth tens of times more.
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