Shell explosion kills 3 family members in Vietnam

Source: Chinadaily.com

HANOI -- A couple and their three-year-old child were killed when an ammunition shell exploded in Vietnam's central Quang Nam Province, according to local newspaper Youth on Wednesday.

The explosion occurred at the victims' house in Duy Xuyen District on Tuesday afternoon when the 31-year-old man named Pham Van Thang was trying to break the shell for scraps. His wife, standing nearby, and the child held in her arms were killed on the spot.

According to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund of the United States, during the Vietnam War from 1965-1975, the US Armed Forces deployed more than 15 million tons of bombs, mines, artillery shells and other ordnance in the country, in which 10 percent did not detonate as designed.

Local scrap collectors often saw of unexploded ordnance (UXO) for metal and explosive, while small children play ammunitions by breaking them, resulting in hundreds of deaths and injuries annually.

Now, there are over 300,000 tons of UXO in Vietnam, estimated local officials