According to U Tin Swe Myint administrator of Hpakant township, even though they compiled a list of lost people and asked the villagers to tell them of any missing people from Ba-La-Kha, Taungpyo and Maw-Moung villages, which are close to where the four miners were killed when a soil heap collapsed on them on 6th January, there is still no news of further missing people.

Though the soil heap collapsed on the miners on 6th January their bodies were only recovered on 7th and 8th January.

U Tin Swe Myint told KNG on 9th January: “We found four bodies and confirmed their identities. They were found at 2.45pm yesterday, they are all Rakhine people. Information about other people lost from three nearby villages has not reached us yet.”

U Lwan Dawn the secretary of the Fight against Drug Group of Hpakant Township said the four miners whose bodies were recovered were identified as: Ko Myo Naing (27), Ko Naing Lin (22), Daw San Htay (35) and Ma Thidar (23) and other bodies could still be covered by the soil.

He said: “There were about eight shops, the shops and the shop owners were all submerged by soil in the accident. If the bodies are dug out there is a risk that soil might cover the excavating rescue workers so we stopped digging. If they had continued digging it may have been possible to find the bodies. There might be approximately 150 to 160 bodies covered by soil, but no one dares to dig them out anymore.”

Though residents suspect that there may still be many bodies under the soil all the backhoes stopped excavating for bodies on 9th January said Sayar La Maung La Taung who is in charge of the Kachin People’s Voice Development Committee in Hpakant.

He said: “People are saying that there may be 70 to 100 bodies there because it is a good season for mining. People are guessing by looking at the number of unclaimed motorcycles parked nearby.”

The Kachin State Government stopped companies mining jade at Hpakant in May 2012 after fighting with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) resumed. Mining only restarted again in September 2014.

Recently Guamjar Aung (20) was crushed and killed by a backhoe owned by the Tawk-Pa-Kyel Company in Hpakant at the Jade Business Center jade market in November 2014.

In the Hpakant area companies that collaborate with the government and share their profits with them have been using backhoes to dig out soil. This gets piled up into huge hill-sized piles that frequently collapse on miners searching through the discarded soil for jade. They also prevent water from flowing away and cause floods in that area.

Translated by Aung Myat Soe English version written by Mark Inkey for BNI