PHNOM PENH, Feb 14 (NNN-AKP) – An expert team of the Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC), has found and safely removed a war-left U.S.-made MK-82 aerial bomb, in southern Kandal province, a mine clearance chief said, yesterday.
The CMAC’s Director-General, Heng Ratana, said, the bomb had been spotted in a pit in Taben village, Roleang Kaen commune of Kandal Stueng district.
“Today (yesterday), the CMAC’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) experts, safely removed and transported an aerial bomb typed MK-82, with a total weight of around 230 kg, to the CMAC’s disposal centre,” he wrote on social media, with photographs of an expert defusing the bomb.
Cambodia is one of the countries worst affected by landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERWs). An estimated four million to six million landmines and other munitions had been left over from three decades of war and internal conflicts that ended in 1998.
According to the Yale University, from Oct, 1965 to Aug, 1973, the United States had dropped over 2.75 million tonnes of ordnance in 230,516 sorties on 113,716 sites in Cambodia.
A Cambodian official report showed that, from 1979 to 2024, landmine and ERW explosions had claimed 19,834 lives and maimed 45,252 others, in the country.– NNN-AKP
