# Hpakant The source of essentially all the world's gem-grade jadeite, in the Uru River valley of western Kachin State — and the densest single node in [[Myanmar Conflict Minerals]]. The terrain is now largely anthropogenic: mountains of overburden tipped beside water-filled open pits, a landscape journalists routinely describe as a dystopian wasteland. Three roads historically served it, from Kamaing, Mohnyin and Tamakan. ## The two workforces **Above:** mechanised concessions held by the military conglomerates — [[Myanma Economic Holdings]] and [[Myanmar Economic Corporation]] — by companies tied to the former ruling family, and by politically connected firms. High-grade jade selling at $13,000 a kilogram and up. **Below:** the ***yemase***, freelance scavengers working the tailings dumps of the mechanised operations. Perhaps **400,000 across northern Myanmar**, mostly unregistered internal migrants — which is why the death tolls below are never final. Heroin and methamphetamine use among them is widely documented, and [[Global Witness]] recorded concession holders forcibly evicting them. ## The landslide record The mechanism is structural, not accidental: companies pile tailings hundreds of feet high in breach of regulations; abandoned pits fill with rainwater and undercut the waste heaps; monsoon rain brings them down onto the scavengers working the dumps. **At least ten tailings failures between 2015 and 2020 alone.** A 2021 study attributed the worst of them to "poor design and mismanagement." | Date | Deaths | |---|---| | November 2015 | 100+ | | July 2018 | ≥15 | | April 2019 | 6 | | **2 July 2020 (Wai Khar)** | **~175–200** — a six-metre wave of mud and water | | December 2021 | ~20, with up to 100 swept into a lake | | March 2022 | ~24 dead, 80 missing | | August 2023 | 32 | | 13 January 2025 | 32 | | ~29 June 2026 | 5 dead, 15 missing | ## The siege > [!warning] The KIA did not capture Hpakant > This is the most commonly collapsed distinction in coverage of Myanmar's minerals. From **March 2024** the [[Kachin Independence Army]] took more than sixty junta outposts across Kachin, seizing the base controlling road access to Hpakant in April and cutting the town off from regime supply routes by June. It **encircled Hpakant for roughly a year**. A junta counter-offensive of around a thousand troops pushed back from April 2025, and **the junta still held the town** through at least June 2025, systematically torching mining machinery and staff accommodation as it went. Rice doubled in price. > > The **rare-earth townships — Chipwi and Pangwa — *were* captured**, in October 2024. That is the distinction that matters, and secondary sources routinely merge the two. Mining continues regardless: the June 2026 landslide is proof that scavengers are still working the dumps. ## The market collapse China's early-2024 crackdown on border scam centres and tax fraud gutted the Ruili trade, and the Mandalay gems market "almost crashed," with business shifting to untaxable WeChat transfers. Chinese merchants largely stayed away from the junta's November 2025 emporium. In **February 2026 the junta signed a memorandum with Yunnan officials** to hold a Myanmar gems exhibition in a Chinese border trade zone — growing dependence on the only buyer left. ## See also [[Myanmar Conflict Minerals]] · [[Kachin Independence Army]] · [[Myanma Economic Holdings]] · [[Myanmar Economic Corporation]] · [[Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining]] · [[Conflict Resources Atlas]]