Blast at a Mining Explosives Store Kills More Than 45 in Myanmar

An explosion at a building in northeastern Myanmar killed more than 45 people and injured about 70, according to rescuers and independent media cited by the South China Morning Post. The blast struck around midday in a village in Shan state, near the country's mining belt.

The building is reported to have been storing explosives for mining, and the detonation damaged about 100 nearby houses, The Hindu reported. The death toll was still being assessed, and reporting from Myanmar remains difficult under the country's continuing conflict and restrictions on information.

Shan state is central to an extraction economy that supplies minerals and gems, much of it through informal channels into neighboring China. The accident points to the weak safety controls common in such operations and to the human cost behind parts of the regional minerals trade.