A Catholic bishop has raised concerns about environmentally damaging practices and human dignity in Myanmar’s notorious multibillion-dollar jade mining industry, after a landslide on Saturday killed at least 113 people in northern Kachin state. Bishop Francis Daw Tang of Myitkyina said the disaster near Hpakant township was the fault of government regulators and the mining companies, as they had neglected the potential safety implications for workers by lacking systems for properly managing soil dumps. "We need to respect human dignity, as lots of young people across the country are coming for business opportunities by working as small-scale miners," Bishop Daw Tang told UCANEWS on Monday.
Soldiers, police and volunteers pulled body after body from the rubble on Monday, and more than 100 were still missing. The landslide was the worst-such disaster in recent memory. Bishop Daw Tang said, "The government and companies need to educate the people about hazards and risks, otherwise this kind of accident is most likely to occur again, by neglecting the lives of people." The bishop added that the government and companies need to carry out jade mining with consideration for environmental destruction.
Kachin is home to some of the world's highest-quality jade, and according to Global Witness, a group that investigates misuse of resource revenues, the industry generated an estimated $31 billion last year, with most of the wealth going to individuals and companies tied to Myanmar's former military rulers. Hpakant, which is the industry's epicenter, remains desperately poor, with bumpy dirt roads, constant electricity blackouts and sky-high heroin addiction rates. Workers, many of them migrants from elsewhere in Myanmar, toil long hours in dangerous conditions searching for the precious stones. Much of the jade that is mined in Hpakant is believed to be smuggled to neighbouring China, where the stone is highly valued.
According to La Ja, a Catholic catechist from Hpakant, "Companies who have close ties to the military get much profit from large-scale digging in jade mining areas, yet local Kachin people get no benefit," "Local people face flooding every rainy season as dumped soil blocks … the streams," he told UCANEWS. (Source: UCAN/AP)
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