PHNOM PENH, May 1 (Xinhua) -- A Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC)'s expert team has found another war-left U.S.-made MK-82 aerial bomb in southeast Kampong Cham province, a mine clearance chief said on Wednesday.
CMAC's director-general Heng Ratana said the MK-82 aerial bomb, weighing around 230 kilograms, had been spotted while workers were digging a canal in Prey Chhor district.
"This bomb has been buried more than four meters deep for over 50 years, but it remains in good condition," he wrote on social media.
He said the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) expert team safely removed and neutralized it on Tuesday.
According to the official, since the start of the year, the EOD expert team had unearthed and safely removed six MK-82 aerial bombs and one 350-kilogram M117 aerial bomb in different provinces including Kampong Cham, Kampong Speu, Kandal and Preah Sihanouk.
Ratana wrote on social media in February that an estimated more than 4 million tonnes of aerial bombs and 27 million cluster bombs had been dropped on some 115,273 locations throughout Cambodia by more than 500,000 U.S. bombing missions between mid-1965 and 1973.
Cambodia is one of the world's worst countries suffered from mines and unexploded ordnances (UXOs) as the results of three decades of war and internal conflicts from the mid-1960s to 1998. An estimated 4 to 6 million land mines and other munitions left over from the conflicts.
From 1979 to February 2024, landmine and UXO explosions had claimed 19,822 human lives and either injured or amputated 45,221 others in the Southeast Asian country, according to an official report. ■
