Categories
News Blog

NEWS ROUNDUP March 2015

2015 March

march 31, 2015
“Two of my friends are lying there, dead.”


It started as just another day of boys’ play. “I was with my friends at a quarry that is used as a shooting range; it was seven of us. We’ve played there many times before,” said Maksim* somberly, lying in a hospital bed in his native Donetsk city, Ukraine.
“We spotted a cluster bomb that was just lying around. Two of my friends picked it up and started taking photos with it. The rest of us stepped back, because we were scared. Then my friends threw the bomb into a hole in the ground.”
What happened next is vivid in Maksim’s memory, and it will stay with him for the rest of his life.
The rest of the story is told by UNICEF.

March 30, 2015
Boonton woman looking for MIAs, unexploded bombs in Laos


U.S. Army Spc. Laura Gutbrod of Boonton is on a 35-day mission to southern Laos, part of a 20-person team looking for unexploded ordinance and any evidence of MIAs from the Vietnam War.
Her Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) recovery team is going over the same terrain U.S. forces bombed or traversed 50 years ago.
“Even finding one piece of tiny bone means something,” Gutbrod said in a telephone interview with the Daily Record. More on the story (plus wildly inaccurate ideas on mountain heights in Laos) can be read at The Daily Record of Parsippany, NJ.

March 24, 2015
Four Young Boys Injured by UXO

Four primary school boys aged 10 to 13 were injured, two seriously, after playing with unexploded ordnance in Siem Reap, Chi Kraeng district police chief Touch Sakol said yesterday.
The accident occurred on Tuesday, about 150 metres from Pongro primary school, where the boys are students. During a class break, they wandered away from the school perimeter and found the device, which they began to hit with sticks, explained Sakol, adding, “They didn’t know that it was unexploded ordnance.” More on this tragic Cambodian story over at the Phnom Penh Post.

March 23, 2015
UXO Survey Workshop: Call for Abstracts


The Hydrographic Society UK (THS UK) is to organise a one-day seminar and accompanying table-top exhibition focusing on Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) Surveys on 19 June 2015.
Presenters may discuss case studies and genuine UXO survey operations, hazard identification and reduction, equipment and sensor technology, survey methodologies, data processing, modelling, depth of burial algorithms and the special challenges associated with ground-truthing, discrimination, classification and UXO clearance techniques. Have something interesting to say about that? Check out the link at Hydro International.

March 20, 2015
Blown Away

Explosions blasted mud in the air as soldiers conducted detonation of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in Kosovo.
Soldiers with Kosovo Force 19 Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) teams, Kosovo Security Force (KSF) Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) teams, and a Kosovo Police (KP) Improvised Explosive Device (IED) defeat teams, participate in the disposal of more than 200 pounds of recovered explosive hazards at the Kosovo Police demolition range in Mt. Golesh, Kosovo, March 18. Read more about the US Military doing clearance work in places other than Laos over at DVIDS.

March 19, 2015
Job Opening: UXO Technician II Ft. Irwin, CA

We don’t usually get to make job posts, but there is an opening in California for a bomb clearance expert. Have a gander.

March 17, 2015
Mines Action Canada Welcomes Canada’s Ratification of Cluster Bomb Ban Despite Lingering Concerns about Legislation

Canada has finally ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions and totally banned these inhumane weapons. After signing the Convention on Cluster Munitions in December 2008, Canada ratified the Convention today and will be fully bound by the provisions of the Convention on September 1, 2015. As a full state party, Canada will join 89 other states in a total ban on cluster munitions due to the unacceptable humanitarian harm they cause. The Convention bans the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions as well as assistance with any of those acts.
Read more here about the debated clause that allows Canada to still fight alongside cluster-munition-using countries like the USA.

March 16, 2015
Laser-imaging drone to hunt out unexploded bombs in war-torn nations

We first noted this company and its claims a few months back, but they have since made a new pitch, this time at SXSW. There are so many things that make this unlikely to work in a place like Laos (where they say they will test it), but, as my Oma would say, “If they say it and it’s true, I guess you can believe it.” Check out laser drones here.

March 10, 2015
ANAMA neutralizes 195 UXOs and mines in February

179 UXOs, 3 anti-tank mines and 12 anti-personnel mines were detected and neutralized, the Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA) told APA.
487 specialists and 119 assistants, 6 mine clearing vehicles and 36 mine detection dogs were involved in the operations. There is a little bit more over at APA.

March 9, 2015
The Lone Buffalo Cleared Unexploded Bombs And Boosted Needy Kids

Karen and I were happy to get a story about this great guy – and a character in Eternal Harvest – into this story on NPR’s website. Go read about the legacy of Manophet, one of the most remarkable people we have met in our travels about Laos.

March 5, 2015
‘Heroic’ giant rats sniff out landmines in Tanzania

he pre-dawn silence at the foot of the Uluguru mountains is disturbed only by the cries of drowsy birds, the whisper of boots through grass and an intermittent clicking sound that is irresistible to 60 pairs of tiny, almost translucent, ears.
When the sun finally rises over the blue peaks to flood the fields below, it illuminates one of the more unlikely scenes of human-animal cooperation. More on the heroic bomb rats of Tanzania from The Guardian.
Watched over by men and women clutching bananas and the small clickers used to train puppies, dozens of African giant pouched rats shuttle across taped-off alleyways trying to catch the lingering scent of TNT from some of the 1,500 deactivated landmines that have been sown in the red earth.

March 4, 2015
2,723 mines, UXOs neutralized last year in Azerbaijan’s war territories, liberated lands

In 2014, Azerbaijan cleared of landmines a total area of 334 265 77 square meters in the districts of Fuzuli, Aghjabedi, Terter, Khojavand, Aghdam, Tovuz, Gedebey, Goranboy, Gazakh, Goygol and Aghstafa in operations carried out to clear off and neutralize unexploded ordinances (UXO) in the country’s war territories and areas liberated from invasion, the Azerbaijani government’s 2014 annual report said.
You can read a little bit more and find links at APA.

March 5, 2015
After Decades after war, Vietnam and the US battle a legacy of bombs

NOTE – A third story on the US giving aid for UXO removal in Vietnam, this time by Reuters.
Red skull-and-crossbones markers dot the horizon in a barren patch of land in Vietnam where missteps could be fatal.
The signs warn of landmines and bombs, the legacy of a war with the United States that claims casualties even today, four decades after hostilities ceased in 1975.
Unexploded ordnance (UXO) has since killed 42,000 people and wounded 62,000 in Vietnam, according to official data. Three in every 10 casualties were children. The rest of the story is at The Economic Times of India.

March 3, 2015
US to provide $8 million for UXO removal in central Vietnam

NOTE – This is the same topic as in the Xinhua story below, though with rather different figures.
This year the U.S. government will grant US$8 million for clearing unexploded ordnance (UXO) left over in the central Vietnamese province of Quang Tri during the war before 1975, a senior American official has said. Rose Gottemoeller, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security for the U.S. State Department, revealed the grant during her working visit to the province on Monday.
At a meeting with leaders of the provincial administration, the under secretary expressed her delight at the outcomes of the cooperation between the U.S. and Vietnam in general and the province in particular in dealing with war consequences. Click here to read the story as interpreted by Tuoi Tre News in Vietnam.

March 2, 2015
US official visits ’17 parallel north’ province, promising 10 million for UXO

Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security of the United States Rose Gottemoeller on Monday paid a visit to Vietnam’s central Quang Tri province where the “17th parallel north” divided Vietnam into two zones during 1954-1975 war time to observe US-funded efforts to survey and clear unexploded ordnance (UXO) of war.
Quang Tri, some 480 km south of capital Hanoi, has been the first locality in the country implementing a pilot program of international cooperation on humanitarian demining allowed by Vietnamese government, according to state-run radio Voice of Vietnam (VOV). During war time, Quang Tri was among the most-hit localities by bombs. Click here to read more of the story from Xinhua.

March 2, 2015
IN DEPTH: UXO — the hidden danger for offshore wind

The waters off Northern Europe are littered with millions of tonnes of live, unexploded ordnance (UXO) — a legacy of two world wars and decades of government sea-dumping that continued until the 1980s, explains Simon Cooke, chief executive of UXO risk management consultancy 6 Alpha Associates.
“[Dumping ordnance] was not only irresponsible and short-termist, it’s now proving exceptionally expensive to deal with,” says the former British Army bomb disposal officer, who served in Afghanistan and Kosovo. “And after years of storm events and conventional sea movement, these things drift, so the munitions don’t stay where you think they are.” Learn more about the lightly reported issue in the North Sea at Recharge News.

Categories
News Blog

NEWS ROUNDUP August 2014

Aug2014News

August 29, 2014
Four children die in explosions

The coordinator of the Sirba camps for displaced people told Radio Dabanga from Manjura in Jebel Moon that Adam Nimeiri Haj (13 years), Abdo Mohamed (12 years), and Haitham Ishag Adam (11 years) were herding goats in the area on Wednesday. They found an unexploded ordnance (UXO), which detonated as they started playing with it, the coordinator explained. They were killed on the spot.
An explosion of a remnant of war on Tuesday killed one child and seriously wounded another in Drankola in Sirba locality. The camp coordinator explained that the incident occurred when the two children were letting their camels graze in the area. “The injured child was transferred to El Geneina hospital for treatment.”
Radio Dabanga has the rest of the story.

August 27, 2014
UXO Casualties Rising

The Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) has recorded a drastic increase in the number of deaths and injuries due to unexploded ordnance and landmines this year compared with 2013, the organisation has said.
Heng Ratana, director-general of CMAC, said yesterday that there had been 101 casualties in the first six months of 2014, compared with about 110 cases in the whole of last year. Read the rest of the story at The Phnom Penh Post.

August 25, 2014
Ho Chi Minh City sappers collect war-era bomb, shell

Sappers on Monday collected a Vietnam War 400 lb bomb and an artillery shell which were found last week in District 9, Ho Chi Minh City.
The bomb was found last Monday when local people were dredging the Mon canal. It measured 1.5 meter in length and 0.4 meters in diameter.
The 105 mm shell, weighing 50 kg, was found in a near by paddy field. See more at Thanh Nien News.

August 22, 2014
Unexploded Israeli ordnance creates more danger for Gazans

The explosion of a device in northern Gaza, while Palestinian experts were attempting to disable it on Aug. 13, led to the death of six individuals, including journalists, one of whom was an Italian reporter working for the Associated Press in the Gaza Strip.
Medhat al-Batash, a technical department official for the explosives engineering unit in Gaza, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Interior, said that the UXOs of the current war are more dangerous than in any previous war.Read more here.

August 16, 2014
Mission imprecision: the unexploded ordnance war

In September of 2006, Haaretz quoted the head of an Israeli Army rocket unit on his military’s performance during the recent 34-day war on Lebanon: “What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs.”
As the article explains, the United Nations estimated at the time that approximately 40 percent of cluster rounds fired by Israel had failed to explode. This is why, despite intensive and ongoing cleanup efforts by Lebanese and international organisations, we still continue to see headlines like: “18-year-old Lebanese killed by Israeli cluster bomb.”
The rest of the story is at Mideast Eye.

August 15, 2014
Couple fear for their lives as diggers move onto Killingworth field which may harbour unexploded bombs

A couple say they were left fearing for their lives after a digger began working in a field next door which could contain dozens of unexploded bombs.
Steve and Joanne Pattison, who live on the eastern edge of Killingworth Village, raised the alarm with police and North Tyneside District Council as they watched consultants for Bellway Homes carry out preliminary work at the Killingworth Stores site
But the house builder, which has applied for permission to construct 127 homes on the land, said the area was low risk and their consultant was carrying out minor channelling work to prove it.
ChronicleLive (UK) has more.

August 14, 2014
UXO blast kills two in central Vietnam

Two men were killed while trying to extract explosives from an unidentified item of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in the central province of Phu Yen on Wednesday.
The incident happened at around 9 a.m. when Vo Thang, 41, and Nguyen Tan An, 25, of Son Hoa District used a saw to cut the ordnance.
Local residents said they heard an explosion near a house of a park ranger in Son Hoi Hamlet which is located near the Da Chat Forest. Rushing to the site, they found the body parts of the duo.
The rest of the story is at Thanh Nien News.

August 14, 2014
In Pictures: Funeral of Gazan translator killed by Israeli UXO

Relatives and friends mourn over the body of Ali Shehada Abu Afash, a translator working with The Associated Press, during his funeral in Gaza City on 13 August.
Afash was killed in an ordnance explosion in the Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, together with Associated Press video-journalist Simone Camilli and three members of the Gaza police. Police said four other people were seriously injured, including AP photographer Hatem Moussa. See the photos at Mideast Eye.

August 13, 2014
Tragic deaths in Gaza are a reminder of a world full of unexploded bombs

An Italian videojournalist with the Associated Press, his interpreter and four Palestinians were killed in a string of explosions at an ordnance dump in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. As The Washington Post’s William Booth reports, Simone Camilli and Ali Shehda Abu Afash were filming a crew of Gazan police tasked with defusing the collected munitions. The assignment, for all involved, took a deadly, tragic turn.
Unexploded ordnance, the remnants of cluster bombs and fizzled rockets, have long been a danger in the Gaza Strip, which has endured repeated offensives by Israel over the past half decade. Six months after the end of Israel’s 2008-9 Operation Cast Lead, the United Nations reported that at least 12 civilians, including six children, had been killed during incidents related to unexploded ordnance, which the U.N. labels “UXO.”
The Washington Post has the rest of the story.

August 6, 2014
UXO Tour brings foreigners face to face with bombing devastation in Quang Tri

A group of backpackers panned their cameras across a remote commune in Quang Tri Province, clicking away, then turned to do the same to a pile of sandbags placed over a soon-to-be detonated piece of war-era ordnance.
Soon the group was whisked away to watch the climactic explosion set off by a foreign-funded de-mining team.
The Quang Tri UXO Tour has run for two years now as a partnership between the Norwegian-funded project RENEW and the Vietnam Backpackers Hostels, which now operates three hostels in Hanoi and Hue. Read the rest at Thanh Nien News.

August 3, 2014
World War One Shells Still Deadly and Dangerous

Artillery shells fired off in World War One and Two are still deadly. Detonation experts say shells from World War One along the French countryside could still explode — even one hundred years later.
As the Anniversary of the start of World War One is being remembered, there is a legacy from the war that lingers on even now.
Bomb clearance specialist Guy Momper states, “If you have a million shells falling — besides all those that fell after — the soil’s upheaval necessarily buried a large part of those which did not explode.” See more at the Net News Ledger.

August 1, 2014
Unexploded ordnance: Don’t touch it, report it

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. – The 20th CBRNE Command’s senior enlisted leader has seen it: an unpinned hand grenade in a garage, practice bombs in a basement and an armed landmine on a mantle.
Command Sgt. Maj. Harold E. Dunn IV from 20th CBRNE Command (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosives) said unexploded ordnance (UXO) is not only found on military proving grounds, training ranges and battlefields but also in residential, commercial and recreational areas.
Dunn said UXO can be found just about anywhere.
Read more at DVIDS.

August 1, 2014
Laos’ hard work reduces number of UXO victims

Great efforts made by the Lao Government together with international support have helped reduced the number of victims of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in the country to just 56 last year from the previous 300 each year.
The positive result was reported at a ceremony in Vientiane on August 1 to mark the 4th anniversary of the Convention on Cluster Munitions taking effect.
Chairman of the Lao National Regulatory Authority for UXO/Mine Action Sector and Minister to the Government Office Bounheuang Douangphachanh also revealed that during 10 months from September 2013 to June this year, relevant forces in the country removed more than 72,000 items of UXO, including nearly 44,000 cluster bombs. More to read at talkvietnam.com.

Categories
News Blog

June 9, 1964: The day the first US bombs fell on Laos

Fifty years ago today, on June 9, 1964, the first American bombs fell on Laos, in what would become the largest bombing campaign in history.

The Unites States had been flying reconnaissance missions across Northern Laos in support of Royalist Lao forces fighting a communist insurgency backed by North Vietnam. On June 8th, anti-aircraft batteries near the Plain of Jars shot down an American reconnaissance plane. On June 9th, eight F-100 fighters dropped bombs on those positions, on the orders of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Those were the first of millions of bombs to be dropped over the next nine years.

There is no day of remembrance in Laos for June 9. It is mentioned only in passing in The United States Air Force In Southeast Asia 1961-1973, published by the Office of Air Force History (page 122). But the legacy of that day will be felt in Laos for decades to come.

Below, an excerpt from Eternal Harvest.

 

A boy digs for ant larvae to use in soup on a hillside overlooking the Plain of Jars.
A boy digs for ant larvae to use in soup on a hillside overlooking the Plain of Jars.

A boy stands on a barren hillside, his body a silhouette against blue sky. He’s poised at an angle, aligned with the slope of the hill. He has a shovel and a basket—his tools—as he stabs the earth, looking for ant eggs to use as fishing bait. He lifts the shovel and drives it into the soil. The boy knows about UXO. He knows the ground could explode beneath him. He knows this land is contaminated with bombs that were dropped before he was born. But still, he pumps his shovel.

We meet this boy while hiking with our guide, Manophet, between sites along the Plain of Jars. The young boy keeps flinging dirt. Manophet goes to him and demonstrates a safer way to dig, slowly and softly. He instructs the boy to stop if he hits something hard.

But the boy shrugs off the advice. “I’ve done it many times,” he says. And he goes on digging.

We continue on. Manophet looks weary. He talks of the years he spent working for MAG, looking for UXO. He’s lost friends and neighbors to accidents. He has seen human bodies torn to shreds. Digging for any reason exacerbates the risk of an accident, yet people do it. It’s not because they don’t understand the dangers. It’s because the dangers never go away.

Bombs are a natural part of life in much of Laos, and risk has become routine. Fifty years after the first bombs fell, many Laotians realize they may always have to live on contaminated land. When a hazard is so pervasive for so long, its presence enters the subconscious. It’s impossible to live for decades in active, constant fear. “In daily life, you just have to go on,” says a Xieng Khouang man named Phou Vieng who lost a leg and an arm while digging in the floor of his house. Of course he knew the risks, he says. “Some days we just forgot it could happen.”

People adapt—they must. And people take chances—sometimes by choice, sometimes necessity. There are prospects in the ground. All across Laos, locals turn bits and bobs of old U.S. bombs into useful everyday tools: pails and lanterns, barns and huts, ashtrays and homes. Bomb canisters are stacked into fences and formed into feed troughs. Bomb scrap is melted down and shaped into bowls and spoons. Hunks of high-grade steel are molded into knives and machetes. Lightweight aluminum tubes that once held dozens of bombies now form the legs of sturdy ladders. Defused bomblets serve as lamps, and buckets bear labels naming the precise U.S. armory location and date on which they began life as flare canisters. On some rivers, fishermen float in boats made from the fuel tanks dropped by American pilots. And around many rural homes, vegetables grow in bomb casings.

A woman waters her herb garden, planted in a cluster bomb casing and raised on stilts in Boualapha town, Khammouane Province.
A woman waters her herb garden, planted in a cluster bomb casing and raised on stilts in Boualapha town, Khammouane Province.

We meet a woman on the roadside in Khammouane province as she waters a thick clump of scallions growing in a bomb canister propped up on a couple of old, dead tree trunks. “Oh, this came from the airplane,” she says. “My parents had this a long time.” It works much better than wood. “This is the best planter.”

One small Xieng Khouang community called Ban Naphia, near the Plain of Jars, has made an industry out of scrap. Every day, locals forge hundreds of spoons from the detritus of war. Earthen ovens sit behind many of the homes. Villagers fire them hot and strong, powerful enough to turn an aluminum section of flare canister—with U.S. label still attached—into a dribble of shimmering liquid. It is poured into spoon-shaped molds encased in wood. The liquid cools, and in just a few minutes, a spoon emerges.

Spoons
A young woman makes spoons from aluminum war scrap in a shop behind her home in Ban Naphia, Xieng Khouang Province.

Ban Naphia produces about 150,000 spoons each year, using aluminum from flares, fuses, bomb fins, and fighter jet parts. It is an inherently risky enterprise, and MAG is working with villagers to make their jobs safer. According to MAG documents, “Several people from Ban Naphia have been injured by UXO over recent years.”

Still, the drive to dig is often stronger than the will to resist potential income. In the city, Laotians earn on average a few dollars a day. In the countryside, incomes lag far behind. By trading in scrap, farmers can reap a different type of harvest. The price goes up and down, and it varies depending on location, quality of metal, and a person’s position in the scrap trade. Many villagers quote a price near seven cents a pound—plenty good enough for them to hit the fields with shovels, spades, or detectors….

Categories
News Blog

NEWS ROUNDUP June 2014

June2014News

June 27, 2014
Vietnam War-era bomb found, defused in Laos capital

Laos authorities defused a 500-pound MK82 bomb from the Vietnam War found on the outskirts of the capital this week, the Vientiane Times reported. Read the rest at The Nation.

June 26, 2014
IDPs face landmine and UXO threat

IDPs are particularly vulnerable to the landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) littering the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, as they’re in unfamiliar territory. There is a little bit more to read over on the site of Guardian Witness.

June 24, 2014
Unexploded Ordnance in Darfur

In East Jebel Marra, eight cows were killed, and three others injured when an unexploded ordnance (UXO) detonated 2km west of Dalma Dalma village. A little bit more over at Radio Dabanga.

June 20, 2014
Unexploded Ordnance Found on Fort Riley (Kansas)

Since the ordnance could not be identified, Fort Riley officials temporarily evacuated about 60 residences in the area. The ordnance was removed and transported to a safe location for proper disposal. From the Hays Post.

June 15, 2014 Boys lose hands, legs as UXO detonates in North Darfur

Three boys were maimed in the area of Jebel Karo, North Darfur, on Friday when a grenade they found detonated. “Murtada Ibrahim Bakhit (16), his brother Abdel Bagi (11), and Abdel Hamid Suleiman Mousa (12) on Friday found a grenade in the area of Jebel Karo, about 20km south of Tawila town”, Omda Mousa Mukhtar Bush told Radio Dabanga. “When they started to play with it, the grenade detonated. The legs of Abdel Bagi were blown off. Murtada and Abdel Hamid lost their hands.” Radio Dabanga has the full story.

June 10, 2014 Dicing with death in the dark

IMAGINE you are diving in a muddy river with virtually zero visibility. Then imagine your objective is to find unexploded landmines. Mandurah Detective-Sergeant Tony Langer has experienced this many times. Read his story on the Australian site In My Community. In 2008, Sgt Langer watched an episode of Australian Story on the ABC that led him to help with the clearing of landmines from Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. Read the rest of the story at the Australian site In My Community.

June 9, 2014 This farmer can now work safely on his land for the first time in 40 years

“There were bombies [the local term for cluster submunitions] everywhere.” Fifty-nine year old Sithon Manyvong recalls returning home to Naphia in 1975 after the Vietnam War had ended. “Because there were no UXO clearance organisations at that time, we villagers had to move the bombies ourselves,” Sithon says. “We piled them up and covered them with firewood to burn them… and what did not explode we buried in the soil.” Read more from MAG at Thomson-Reuters.

June 6, 2014 Battambang pagoda’s pond held deadly UXO cache

Five unexploded ordnance (UXO) and 80 bullets were dug out from the drained pond of a Battambang pagoda yesterday. Authorities in Sangke district’s Anlong Vil commune spotted the devices on Wednesday, and deminers from the Cambodian Mine Action Centre yesterday dug through the emptied pond to find two anti-tank mines, a 60mm mortar, two DK-82 mortars and 80 MP5K bullets. More at The Phnom Penh Post.

June 4, 2014 Nine Vietnam War-era bombs cleared from Laos-Vietnam rail link

Bomb clearance teams working on a 220-kilometrerail line in southern Laos have found nine unexploded devices along the route, a news report said. A hundred ordnance clearers were deployed along the 5-billion-dollar Savannakhet-Laobao railroad, which will link north-east Thailand to central Vietnam, the Vientiane Times reported. The Thailand-based Nation Online has more.

June 3, 2014 Fungi farming brings safe money to bomb-addled Quang Tri

Ever since the war, Quang Tri Province’s poor have made a dangerous living selling the unexploded remains of the US’s mammoth bombing campaign, but a new program gives them a safer option – planting fungi. “Growing mushrooms suits the disabled victims of bombs – those with disabilities and poor health,” said Do Thien Dang who lost his legs in an accident caused by unexploded ordnance (UXO). More at Thanh Nien News.

June 2, 2014 Three North Darfur children maimed by grenade

Three boys were maimed when a grenade they found and played with detonated in the area of Ba’ashim in North Darfur on Sunday. Apart from losing their hands, the boys sustained face, shoulder and leg injuries, a relative of one of the boys told Radio Dabanga. He said that he fears the boys may bleed to death, as there is no health centre in the neighbourhood. “The nearest hospital is in Mellit town, tens of kilometres away.” Read more on the story at Radio Dabanga.

June 2, 2014 Bomb blast kills two in southern Vietnam

Two men were killed on Sunday while trying to extract explosive from a Vietnam War era unexploded bomb they found near their home in the southern province of Dong Nai. They reportedly decided to extract explosives by sawing the bomb open. Their relatives and neighbors said they found Hung’s body in the kitchen pierced by many shrapnels. Meanwhile, parts of Minh’s body were found in the backyard, they said. More of the story at Thanh Nien News.

Categories
News Blog

NEWS ROUNDUP March 2014

March2014News

March 31, 2014
Two Cambodians killed by mines

A 12-year-old boy and a 37-year-old farmer lost their lives over the weekend in UXO explosions in Battambang and Pailin provinces.
Read more at The Phnom Penh Post.

 

March 18, 2014
USAF EOD blows up beach bomb

Airmen from 1st Special Operations Civil Engineer Squadron explosive ordnance disposal destroyed an unexploded ordnance near the beach, which a jogger discovered at Perdido Key, Fla., March 12, 2014. Get the lowdown from Hurlburt AFB.

March 18, 2014
Cambodian construction workers find US bomb

Clearance workers removed an American MK82 bomb from a construction site in Kandal province. Records show UXO has killed three children in Cambodia so far in 2014. More from the Phnom Penh Post.

March 17, 2014
Vietnam calls for int’l help in clearing wartime UXO

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has asked international sponsors to join Vietnam’s efforts to rid the country of unexploded ordnance (UXO) that still kills and injures thousands of people every year.
The PM was speaking at an international conference organized by Committee 504, a national agency tasked with clearing UXO, in Hanoi on Friday. Read more here.

March 15, 2014
Germany funds UXO clearance in Thua Thien-Hue, Vietnam

The German Ministry of Foreign Affairs will support the central province of Thua Thien-Hue with EUR257,911 (US$359,940) to implement a project to clear unexploded ordnance (UXOs) in A Luoi district.
In 2014, apart from clearing bombs and mines left over from wars in the district, the project will develop information management tools, build a bomb and mine database, and implement the Information Management System for Mine Action in the province. More here.

March 15, 2014
UXOs kill 1,500 Vietnamese every year

Accidents caused by unexploded ordnance (UXOs) left over in Vietnam during the wartime have killed more than 42,000 people and injured about 62,000 others in Vietnam since 1975, according to preliminary statistics.
This means UXO-related accidents kill 1,500 people and injure 2,300 others per year. Read the rest at Tuoi Tre News.

March 13 2014
Work Begins on UXO Clearance at GE Site in UK

Work has commenced as part of unexploded ordnance clearance work, off Charleton Road, Montrose by GE Oil and Gas. The currently undeveloped grassland forms part of a former Royal Air Force Airfield (RAF Montrose).
A specialist clearance contractor, BACTEC, under the oversight of our environmental consultants, MWH, has been working on site from the week commencing Monday, February 24, for an estimated 6 weeks. A little more to read here.

March 12, 2014
One mine explosion occurred in Azerbaijan in February

The news was announced by the Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA) on March 11.
ANAMA said about 912,897 square meters of land were inspected and cleared of landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) in Azerbaijan in February; about 408 UXOs and 11 anti-tank mines were found in the country as a result of the operations. See more at Azernews.

March 11, 2014
UXO Discovered in Ft. Meade, Maryland

Utility workers discovered an Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) in a Fort Meade housing area Tuesday afternoon during scheduled maintenance work.
An UXO team responded to the call and determined the device was a World War II-era mortar training round and that it was inactive. A bit more to read at WUSA.

March 11, 2014
1,912,897 sq m area cleared of mines and unexploded ordinances in Azerbaijan

1,912,897 sq m area was inspected and cleared of mines and unexploded ordinances (UXO) by Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA) in February, 2014, Press service of the Agency told APA.
408 UXOs and 11 antitank mines were found and disarmed. 1 Mine/UXO accident was recorded last month. Read more at APA.

Categories
News Blog

NEWS ROUNDUP February 2014

Feb2014News

2/27/2014
Little help for UXO victims in Laos

Around 25 percent of villages in Laos are contaminated by unexploded ordnance (UXOs), mainly from US bombing missions between 1964 and 1973, according to the Lao National Unexploded Ordnance Programme, and while UXO casualties have fallen sharply in recent years there is little support for UXO victims, whose injuries can drastically affect their families. IRIN has the story.

2/24/2014
RWE Calls in Bomb Squad

Three pieces of unexploded ordnance have been discovered at the construction site of RWE’s 576MW Gwynt y Mor offshore wind farm off Wales.
The developer is preparing to remove the objects, referred to as UXO, from the seabed in Liverpool Bay and construction work is continuing. More at RENews.

2/24/2014
Disarmco Turns to Crowdfunding After Risk-Averse Investors Reject Life-Saving Technology.

With more than 120m landmines stored and deployed in places of conflict and post-conflict around the world and 20,000 victims of landmines every year, a British company is set to tackle the problem head on with its pyrotechnic torch technology after raising funds on equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube.
Formed in 2012, Disarmco, raised almost £150,000 against its original £120,000 target and attracted 126 investors, turned to crowdfunding after its earlier efforts to attract investors through more traditional means failed. Read more Here.

2/21/2014
Unexploded ordnance found, disposed of in San Pedro Conservation area

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found two pieces of unexploded ordnance (UXO) during the closure of two sites within the San Pedro National Conservation area. According to a BLM release the areas had been closed since November 2013 for an investigation and study, the sites were formerly used by the U.S. military and located outside Ft. Huachuca. Via TucsonNewsNow.com

2/20/2014
Have You Ever Dropped A Glass On The Floor And It Did Not Break?

Two-and-a-half years after the fall of the Gaddafi regime, Libya continues to suffer from a wide proliferation of explosive items and small arms that threaten civilians.
Amongst those most at risk of coming into contact with landmines, arms and ammunition left behind after fighting are curious children, people wanting to protect themselves, and scrap collectors looking to make a living. Thompson-Reuters has More.

2/13/2014
Landmine, Unexploded Ordnance Deaths Drop by Half in 2013

Deaths from landmines and other unexploded ordnance (UXO) dropped by nearly half from 43 in 2012 to 22 last year, according to the government’s latest casualty figures, the largest drop in recent years.
Total casualties also dropped 40 percent over the same period, from 186 in 2012 to 111 last year, according to the last monthly casualty report for 2013 from the Cambodian Mine Action Authority. Read more at The Cambodia Daily.

2/12/2014
U.S. to Increase UXO Support for Laos

The U.S. government will increase assistance to Laos’ unexploded ordnance (UXO) sector, local press reported Wednesday.
How much of an increase is still being considered but there will be no decrease of support for Laos’ work in surveying, clearing, assisting victims and raising awareness of UXO, U.S. ambassador to Laos Daniel Clune was quoted by state-run daily Vientiane Times as saying. Read more at Chihan.com.

 

2/2/2014
Unexploded munitions a threat in Sudan’s Darfur

From aircraft bombs to cluster munitions and grenades, the Ordnance Disposal Office of the international peacekeeping force in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur has found and destroyed them all. Read the full story from The Times of India here.