Another American war bomb found in Vietnam

A 250-kg bomb dated back to the American War has been detected at a construction site in the northern central province of Thanh Hoa.

While working on the foundation to build a temple in Ha Trung District’s Ha Tan Commune, local people saw the bomb which is around 1.6 metres long. The weapon has been defined to date back to the American war, the Dan Tri Newspaper reported.

On Monday, local authorities took the bomb to Hang Ruong Mountain area in Ha Trung District for the successful detonation.

This has been the 14th bomb denoted in Thanh Hoa so far this year.

According to VNExpress, in November 2020, construction workers found a 350 kg intact bomb while excavating a site on Hanoi’s Cua Bac Street. The intact bomb, around a meter long with a 35 centimeter diameter, was buried 2 meters underground at the construction site for the headquarters of the Power Transmission Corporation No.1.

After an excavator dug and lifted the bomb above the ground, the workers placed it back and waited for further orders from authorities.

Local police soon cordoned off a 100-meter long section of Cua Bac Street in Truc Bach Ward, Ba Dinh District to prevent vehicles and people from entering the area. While some shops in the vicinity remained open, they had no customers.

This is the second large bomb to be found in the capital city in the last six months. In June, a 1.6 meter-long bomb was salvaged from the Red River near the historic Long Bien Bridge four days after it was discovered.

Hanoi was heavily bombed from 1965-1972 by the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War. In particular, during just one fortnight (December 18-30) in 1972, 36,000 tons of bombs were dropped on the city.

Estimates are that at least 350,000 tons of live bombs and mines remain in Vietnam, and that it will take 300 years to clear them from the Vietnamese landscape at the current rate, according to the NYTimes

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Source: Vietnam Insider