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
Bomb disposal experts in the central province of Quang Tri have removed a 900-kg bomb left from the Vietnam War that was found in a village.
Experts from the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) were dispatched to Co My village in Vinh Linh District on Thursday after the unexploded ordnance (UXO) was found by a local farmer. They found it was not attached to the detonator and so could be moved safely. VNExpress reported.
Bomb disposal experts move a 900-kg bomb onto a truck in Quang Tri Province, central Vietnam, August 27, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Tran Van Minh.
The farmer had informed local authorities after he found the UXO at a depth of 1.5 m while digging a pond. He hired an excavator to move it out of the pond before informing local authorities.
On August 24 MAG personnel had moved another UXO, a 334-kg bomb found inside an irrigation reservoir also in Vinh Linh District to a safe place for disposal.
The Vietnam War ended more than 40 years ago, but around 800,000 tons of UXO remain scattered across the country, according to government data.
Quang Tri was one of the main battlegrounds during the war as the stage for the Tet Offensive in 1968 and the Easter Offensive in 1972.
A man who was injured in 2011, while digging for metal to sell, by a bomb that had been dropped by American planes during the Vietnam War.Credit: Jorge Silva/Reuters
An estimated 391,000 hectares of land, accounting for 83.3 percent of the province’s total area, are still infested by mines and other explosives from the war.
According to Quang Tri’s Legacy of War Coordination Center, 8,540 people have fallen victim in the province to exploding UXO since 1975, with 3,431 being killed.
Many of them were scrap collectors who inadvertently set off explosives when handling them.
By Hoang Tao @ VNExpress
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Source: Vietnam Insider