On Aug. 13, in the Hoai An district of the central province of Binh Dinh, four 13- to 15-year-old boys died after they found a U.S.-made M79 rifle grenade and broke it open to get the gunpowder. The grenade exploded, killing three of the boys on the spot and seriously wounding the other. The wounded boy later died on the way to the hospital.
The deaths of the four boys can be added to the long list of victims of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in Vietnam. It also exposes the need to educate civilians about the danger of UXO. In the same province, in 2004, seven people died when they broke open a 105-mm cannon round. Neighbors told local authorities that they had hoped to sell the gunpowder to fishermen.
Landmines and UXO are considered one of the factors hindering the rebuilding of Vietnam. Statistics released by the U.S. Army show that about 15 million tons of bombs, landmines, and munitions of all kinds were used during the Vietnam War. Of those, about 15 to 20 percent failed to detonate on impact and continue to pose a danger to the population.
No official national aggregate statistics exist on landmines and UXO, but it is estimated that the number may reach 800,000 tons, covering nearly 7 million hectares of land (about 20 percent of Vietnam) with an average density of 46 tons per square kilometer, or 280 kilograms per capita. The Peace Trees, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) in Vietnam, said there is now more than 5.3 million UXO in the ground. The most common types of UXO found in Vietnam are M79 rifle grenades and BLU cluster bombs.
According to a report released by the Vietnamese Ministry of Police, since the end of the war in 1975, abandoned U.S. munitions killed more than 38,000 people and wounded more than 100,000. Accidents often happen when people are clearing land for cultivation, collecting scraps for reprocessing, or attempting to retrieve the gunpowder from munitions.
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