November 24, 2015

Myanmar Mine Disaster Highlights Challenge to Suu Kyi

YANGON, Myanmar—The worst mining disaster in Myanmar in a decade has renewed calls for scrutiny around the secretive jade trade and highlighted entrenched economic interests linked to the long-ruling military confronting the incoming government led by Aung San Suu Kyi.
Search-and-rescue operations had recovered 113 bodies as of Monday evening from the site of a collapsed hill of waste soil near jade mines in Hpakant in northern Myanmar, witnesses and local authorities said, two days after a landslide buried almost an entire village at the base. Relief workers said that more than 100 people were missing and expected the toll would keep climbing.

The disaster comes two weeks after Ms. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won a huge victory in national elections that will enable the party to select Myanmar’s next president after a new parliament meets in January. But the tragedy shows how far her party, which is still finding its feet after the election, has to go to regulate an industry in a remote area near China intermittently contested by rebel groups and the army.

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