Dark side of the green stone

Dark side of the green stone

April 24, 2019— Few materials are as stunning as jade. Luminous and sensuous, once carved jade draws in light like a beacon. It has been prized in China for thousands of years.

But jade, like other mined materials, carries with it a dark side. A product of Myanmar, the jade industry is worth an estimated $31 billion a year, or almost half the country’s gross domestic product. Jade is mined, liked gold in Brazil and cobalt in Congo, under hazardous conditions. Landslides composed of its tailings—the mud-like effluvium left over from its extraction—have caused the deaths of hundreds of workers and nearby villagers. Just thisweek, 52 miners were left for dead when a mound of tailings collapsed into an open-pit mine in Kachin State, at the border of India and China.

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Source: Richard C. Paddock and Saw Nang, “Myanmar Jade Mine Disaster Feared to Have Killed More Than 50.” The New York Times, April 24, 2019