This is the terrifying moment a worker descended into a treacherous artisan mine to search for gold ore.

Footage shows a small-scale miner climbing into a rubber basket attached to a pulley system, which functioned as a makeshift lift in Yamethin, Myanmar.

The improvised elevator was slowly lowered into a narrow hole, which had walls reinforced with wooden planks to keep it from collapsing.

At the bottom, the miner continued digging in darkness, guided only by the faint beam of a small headlamp.

The miner's colleague said: ‘There is lots of gold down the hole. We keep digging until we hit the jackpot. Yes, it's risky, but the chance to collect the gold is what motivates us.

'We can either risk starving, to eat or risk our lives mining gold.'

Myanmar has rich deposits of gold, especially in areas like Mandalay, Sagaing, Shan, and Kachin.

Large companies and small-scale local miners scour the rugged terrain, with few rules and minimal environmental protection.

Vast reserves end up being sold illegally or smuggled because of the country's chaotic social landscape, with the military government locked in a civil war against civilian rebel groups.

Gold demand has soared in recent years, fueled by inflation, political instability and wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. The price has hit record highs with central governments, notably China and Russia, buying up large quantities of the precious metal as a hedge against the dollar and the power of the West.

Controversial banker JP Morgan famously said: 'Gold is money, everything else is credit.'

However, some investors remain cynical of the benefits of gold, which was dubbed the 'barbarous relic' by economist John Maynard Keynes, who believed it had limited uses.

Stock market doyen Warren Buffett is similarly dismissive of gold, which he famously does not hold in his investments.

Warren said: 'Gold gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it.'