Hundreds upon hundreds of people, some on foot, others on motorbikes, with pick-axes in hand, race across a dust-choked plain. The video has the feel of fighters rushing into conflict, but the grainy footage actually shows desperate freelance miners on their way to find gems in Hkapant, Myanmar’s main jade mining area.
The video, captured by citizen journalist Ko Ko, went viral on social media when it was published, and shared by the Ministry of Information, yesterday.
“It’s worse than a battle – actually, freelance miners finding rocks,” wrote Ko Ko.
“It looks like a revolutionary movie,” commented Thu Thu.
Hkapant, a town in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state, is a center of the jade industry, attracting both large-scaling mining operations and individual workers who pick over the scrap piles left behind.
It is dangerous, grueling work. Landslides have claimed many lives. The latest, in May, killed at least 12 miners.
The place and time of the video could not be independently verified.
“This is our people,” wrote Soe Soe Thein, commenting on the video. “It is tragedy.”
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