On December 22, 2021, a landslide at a jade mine in the Hpakant township in Kachin State, Myanmar, killed at least three people, and left between 70 and 100 missing.

[4] Dozens of miners have been killed in recent years as a result of smaller accidents, with "jade pickers" who scavenge tailings from larger operators being at greater risk.

[9] These freelance miners live at the base of huge mounds of rubble that has been excavated by heavy machinery.

[11] The pickers are usually migrants from other regions of Myanmar and are unregistered, which makes identification of the missing people difficult.

More recently, a week before the 2021 landslide, another accident at a jade mine in the same area left ten miners missing.

Jade mining in Myanmar is prohibited till March 2022, but these imposed laws are broken by locals who are struggling amidst low employment and poverty.

[16] A local official of Kachin said that the missing also included all of the water treatment workers at the mine.

[14] An image posted on social media showed people standing by the shore of the lake while rescuers search the water by boat.

The Kachin Network Development Foundation stated that as much as 80 people have not been accounted while Myanmar Now placed that number at 100.