Cambodia discovers another war-left US aerial bomb in southern province

Phnom Penh, Aug 14 : Cambodia has found and safely removed another war-left US-made M117 aerial bomb in southern Kandal province, a mine clearance chief said.

Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC)'s Director-General Heng Ratana said on Tuesday that the massive bomb was spotted buried at a paddy field in Kandal Steung district, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Today, August 13, 2024, CMAC's Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) experts safely neutralised an aerial bomb type M117 from Kandal Steung district, Kandal Province," Ratana wrote on social media, with photographs of the bomb.

"This M117 bomb with a total weight of around 340 kg and extensively used during the Vietnam-America war, commonly dropped by B-52G aircraft," he said.

According to the official, since the start of the year, the EOD team had unearthed and safely removed 10 MK-82 aerial bombs and two M117 aerial bombs in different provinces, including Kampong Cham, Kampong Speu, Kandal, Preah Sihanouk, and Svay Rieng, as well as the capital Phnom Penh.

Ratana wrote on social media in February that an estimated more than four million tonnes of aerial bombs and 27 million cluster bombs had been dropped on nearly 115,273 locations throughout Cambodia by more than 500,000 US bombing missions between mid-1965 and 1973.

Cambodia is one of the world's worst countries suffered from mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) as the results of three decades of war and internal conflicts from the mid-1960s until 1998.

An estimated four to six million landmines and other munitions left over from the conflicts.

From 1979 to June 2024, landmine and UXO explosions had claimed 19,830 human lives and either injured or amputated 45,242 others in the Southeast Asian country, according to an official report.