PHNOM PENH, Jun 15 (NNN-AKP) – A fisherman found a war-left U.S.-made MK-82 aerial bomb in a pit lake, on the western outskirts of Phnom Penh, a mine clearance chief said, yesterday.
Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC)’s director-general, Heng Ratana, said, the MK-82 aerial bomb, weighing around 230 kg, had been spotted on Thursday at a pit lake in Kamboul district.
“He was catching fish, but unfortunately caught an aerial bomb type MK-82!” Ratana wrote on social media, with photographs showing a CMAC’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) expert, defusing the bomb at the lake shore.
According to the official, since the start of the year, the EOD team has unearthed and safely removed 10 MK-82 aerial bombs, and one 350-kg M117 aerial bomb, in different provinces, including Kampong Cham, Kampong Speu, Kandal, Preah Sihanouk, and Svay Rieng, as well as, the capital, Phnom Penh.
Ratana wrote on social media in Feb that, an estimated more than four million tonnes of aerial bombs and 27 million cluster bombs had been dropped on some 115,273 locations throughout Cambodia, by more than 500,000 U.S. bombing missions between mid-1965 and 1973.
Cambodia is one of the world’s worst countries that suffered from mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO), as a result of three decades of war and internal conflicts, from the mid-1960s until 1998. An estimated four to six million land mines and other munitions were left over from the conflicts.
From 1979 to Mar this year, landmine and UXO explosions claimed 19,823 lives, and either injured or amputated 45,224 others, in the country, according to official report.– NNN-AKP
