PHNOM PENH, May 21 (Xinhua) -- A Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC) expert team has discovered another war-left U.S.-made MK-82 aerial bomb in southeast Svay Rieng province, a mine clearance chief said on Tuesday.
CMAC director-general Heng Ratana said the MK-82 aerial bomb, weighing around 230 kg, had been spotted while workers were digging a pond in Romeas Hek district.
"Today, the CMAC's Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team cleared aerial bomb type MK-82, which were buried around 5 meters deep," he wrote on social media.
According to the official, since the start of the year, the EOD team had unearthed and safely removed nine MK-82 aerial bombs and one 350-kg M117 aerial bomb in different provinces including Kampong Cham, Kampong Speu, Kandal, Preah Sihanouk and Svay Rieng.
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 suffering from mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) as a result of three decades of war and internal conflict from the mid-1960s until 1998. An estimated 4 to 6 million land mines and other munitions were left over from the conflicts.
From 1979 to February 2024, landmine and UXO explosions claimed 19,822 human lives and either injured or amputated 45,221 others in the Southeast Asian country, according to an official report. ■
