PHNOM PENH, Aug 22 (NNN-AKP) – Cambodia has found another two war-left U.S.-made MK-82 aerial bombs, in southern Kandal province, a mine clearance chief said, yesterday.
Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) Director-General, Heng Ratana, said, the two aerial bombs were spotted in a pit in Kandal Steung district.
“These aerial bombs, type MK-82 with a total weight of around 230 kilograms each, as the remnants of war,” Ratana wrote on social media, with the photographs of CMAC’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) experts, removing the bombs.
According to the official, since the start of the year, the EOD team had unearthed and safely removed 12 MK-82 aerial bombs and two M117 aerial bombs, in different provinces, including Kampong Cham, Kampong Speu, Kandal, Preah Sihanouk, and Svay Rieng, as well as, the capital, Phnom Penh.
Ratana wrote 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-1960’s until 1998. An estimated 4-6 million land mines and other munitions were left over from the conflicts.
From 1979 to Jun, this year, landmine and UXO explosions claimed 19,830 human lives, and either injured or amputated 45,242 others, in the country, according to an official report.– NNN-AKP
