Some 75 people were confirmed dead and another 100 were missing on Saturday after a debris landslide hit northern Myanmar near the region's gold and jade mines, a local official told dpa. A 300-metre pile of waste rock accumulated during the mining process, also known as a spoil tip, collapsed on Saturday morning in Hpakant Township of restive Kachin state, 350 kilometres north of Mandalay. "Seventy-five bodies have been recovered so far," township administrator Tint Swe Myint told dpa by phone. The debris landslide destroyed about 50 houses nearby, and more than 100 people are still missing, he said. "We are still trying to rescue them," he said. Landslides are common in Hpakant, where as much as 90 per cent of the world's jade is mined. In late March, at least a dozen people were killed in another landslide near jade mines in the same area.
