Efforts made to deal with post-war bomb and mine clearance

PANO – Over the past years, sappers of the Thua Thien-Hue provincial Military Command defused a huge amount of bombs, mines and unexploded ordnances left behind from the war.

Particularly, they has deactivated a 1,000kg bomb, found in Ta Rinh stream in Hong Kim commune, A Luoi district, only about 100m from the residential area. In spite of time and bad weather conditions, the bomb's two detonators remained intact. It took the troops nearly 2 hours to move it to a safe site for defusing.

Earlier, the sappers removed a 200kg bomb in a house of a local in Huong Phong commune, Huong Tra town.

Recently, on December 9th and 10th 2013, a team of the Germany’s Solidarity Service International (SODI) collected about 400 shrapnel bombs in Hong Van commune, A Luoi district.

Since 2010, the Command has found and defused more than 7,500 bombs, mines and unexploded ordnances, and freed over 6,500ha of soil for local people for agricultural production. Meanwhile, the SODI team also collected over 5,200 bombs and mines to liberate 323ha of land for cultivation.

At present, there still remain a hug number of bombs and explosives left underground by the U.S after the war in Thua Thien-Hue. Thus, it is necessary for relevant units and organizations to raise people’s awareness of this danger and invest more equipment to do away with post-war bomb and mine clearance in the province in particular and in Vietnam in general.