Series Beginning: World Survey -- Mine Disasters, 2010-Present, Involving 40 Or More Fatalities...

While we've previously occasionally mentioned mine deaths in South Africa (gold -- 900 miners trapped, but all eventually safely brought to the surface with only minor injuries -- but that is clearly the exception which proves the rule, here), China (gold), Kazakhstan (coal) and West Virginia (coal) -- as well as Turkey (coal), since we started this blog generally in 2007, tonight we will begin officially tallying all (2010 or later), in between regular posts, that involved 40 or more fatalities. And when we reach ten such posts, we will create an index post, which captures all in an html linked running summary table.

So, this one tonight is a technically an open pit mine disaster, as in what used to be called Burma, the jadeite is pulled directly from very unstable, wet-clay overburdens, often on steep hillsides -- and mine sites are thus quite prone to mud-slide disasters whenever it rains. . . which is quite often. Add to this, that the safety regulations aren't much enforced, the military comes through and more than occasionally loots the work-force of finds -- as the miners are mostly unauthorized migrants earning under $5 per week, even on a "good finding week", for back-breaking shovel work. Here's the MSM feed / record on that July 2020 jade slide that killed over 170 people:

. . .Win Kyaw, 44, worked as an unauthorised jade picker for 20 years and managed to find pieces that were only worth $10-$15. He said his son, Kyaw Myat Moe, 20, who was killed in the landslide, had managed to find two big pieces but those were taken away from them.

“My son got two big stones last year but a group of soldiers from the Myanmar army took them from him. If we find a big stone, they always come and ask for it,” Win Kyaw told Al Jazeera.

On the day of the accident, Win Kyaw had asked his son to go to work without him as he had some other business to handle. [His son perished in the mudslide that afternoon]. . . .

So many of the things we simply take for granted here in the US. . . come to us, literally from the dying laborers across the planet. If you own jade earrings, or wear a jade pendant. . . know that there is very-likely death, imbued -- in all of it. [It is a feature, not a bug.]

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