Scores of miners have been killed in smaller accidents in recent years, with independent "jade pickers" who scavenge tailings from larger operators particularly at risk.[1] These freelance miners live in ramshackle quarters at the base of large mounds of rubble excavated by heavy machinery.[5] The freelance miners are often migrants from other regions of Myanmar and are unregistered, which complicated reckoning of missing people.[5] Mining is performed at the site by hundreds of people who scavenge through tailings dumped by trucks at the site. The tailings form large slopes, in a moonscape-like scene devoid of trees, which is susceptible to collapse.[3]