VietNamNet Bridge – A resident of Duong Hoa Commune in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue went out last Tuesday looking for honey. Instead, he found a bomb in the local Dai Bac Forest. Bot just any bomb, but one with a detonator. Instead of running for his life, Nguyen Cuu M. decided to satisfy his curiosity.

A resident of Duong Hoa Commune in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue went out last Tuesday looking for honey. Instead, he found a bomb in the local Dai Bac Forest. Bot just any bomb, but one with a detonator. Instead of running for his life, Nguyen Cuu M. decided to satisfy his curiosity. — Photo vitalk.vn

“I was very curious to see the bomb. I went to hold the bomb to know how big it is. I asked my companion to take a photo of me and the bomb,” he said. He said the bomb was about 1.2 metres long and had a diameter of an adult’s arm span.

Luckily, the bomb did not explode and he can boast of his daring and show the photos to others.

But Colonel Nguyen Hong Son, head of the province’s military command, was not amused. He said people who detect unexploded ordnances (UXOs), usually left over from the Vietnam War, should report them immediately to local military authorities for proper handling.

Despite extensive public information campaigns about the dangers of UXOs, in May police in the central province of Quang Tri arrested six members of a family for carrying a 322kg-bomb with its detonators on a three-wheeled vehicle. One of the family members, Le Van Ty, 39, found the bomb in a rubber forest and the first thing he thought was how much someone would pay for the ordnance.

He and his family were lucky not to have been the ones paying for the "find" - with their lives.

VNS