The Military Command of Dien Bien city and sappers from the Military High Command of northern mountainous province of Dien Bien have safely detonated an over 300-kg bomb dropped by the US troops during the war in Vietnam.


{keywords}

The 300-kg bomb found in the foot of a hill in Him Lam ward



The bomb was discovered on March 2 in the foot of a hill near a residential area in Him Lam ward by a local man when he was clearing the slid land in his backyard.

This is the first bomb found in the province in 2018.

According to the Technology Centre for Bomb and Mine Disposal under the Engineering Command, up to 7,645 of the 8,686 communes in Vietnam’s 63 provinces and cities are polluted with unexploded ordnance (UXOs). 

The US army used more than 15 million tonnes of bombs and mines in the war in Vietnam, four times the amount used in World War II. As a result, Vietnam has been listed among the countries most contaminated with UXOs. 

According to the National Steering Committee for Recovery over Postwar Bomb and Landmine Impacts, about 800,000 tonnes of UXOs are scattering across 6.6 million hectares, or 20.12 percent of the country’s land, mainly in the central region, putting people in danger every day. 

Vietnam has cleared hundreds of thousands of hectares of UXOs so far.-VNA