On the ground ... and underwater ... in Laos

Heavy rain and regular flooding have added to the challenges of one the toughest demining operations in progress around the globe, a major ordnance clearance initiative in Laos.

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Five months into a seven-month monsoon season, teams from MineTech International had to battle against rising waters with some personnel up to their waists in the floods, working to clear areas of intense contamination in advance of construction work on the Nam Theun II Hydro-electric Dam.

MineTech, whose mine clearance specialists have experience in Iraq, Kosovo and the Lebanon are used to working in tough conditions, but have nevertheless faced areas of land more heavily contaminated than anything previously encountered, clearing the lethal legacy of the Vietnam conflict from a country which carries the stigma of the most bombed country per capita in the world. More than two million tons of ordnance, including 80 million cluster bombs, were dropped on Laos during the Indochina wars. Based on estimates that up to 30% failed to explode, that leaves some 25 million with explosive potential. The experience of MineTech teams working across Khammouane and Bolikhamxay Provinces suggests this isn't overestimated. During the clearance of an area of just 2000 hectares around the Nam Theun II Hydro-electric Dam's surge shaft and access road, MineTech personnel located more than 2,480 items of UXO including seven 500lb bombs.

Confirms operations manager Max Dyke, "What appeared to be exceptionally high levels of contamination at the start of the project have now become the norm."

This task of clearing has been exacerbated by the high level of metal contamination in the ground contrasted with the fact that the metal content in some of the unexploded munitions is in fact very small. The plastic Dragon's Tooth BLU-43 mines, with just a small trace of metal, present the clearance teams with exactly this problem. Aerially dispersed, they were originally dropped in canisters that opened at altitude to scatter the bomblets, sometimes containing as many as 600 munitions at a time. Designed to detonate with just the gentlest of pressures, they are widespread and deadly.

Adds Max Dyke, "Smaller than your hand and shaped like a butterfly with two distinctive wings, it's easy to see why these little plastic objects are so appealing to curious children, but it's a fatal attraction. Many children have been hurt and killed in Laos playing with this type of explosive."

National casualty figures for EOD incidents in Laos are around 150 people per annum. However, where in 2003 building a fire over buried ordnance accounted for the majority of reported deaths, in 2004 casualties rose sharply, a fact attributed to a skyrocketing trade in scrap metal, fuelled by poverty.

The fact that so many different kinds of ordnance have been used in and over Laos adds a further complication for the EOD teams attempting to identify and eliminate them. More than 120 different types of ordnance have been recorded across the country, including 13 different cluster bombs. Some, like the distinctive butterfly-shaped bombs, are easily recognised, but many have been so degraded by the elements, it's difficult even for the experts to sort one from another, since most rockets, mortars and other projectiles resemble a basic standard shape.

MineTech has unearthed a wide variety of explosive ordnance materials which, despite their age, remain extremely dangerous. In some areas they have encountered a high density of small UXOs such as hand grenades and small mortars combined with what has become the usual high count of fragmentation and metallic scrap. Although many may be faulty after years in the ground, they contain enough explosive and fragments to kill or disable several people. A haul of M7A1 Light Anti-Tank/Vehicle Mines located in a field adjacent to the Thakek road highlights the all too real dangers for farmers and the development of agriculture. Larger than an anti-personnel mine but lighter than an anti-tank mine, they are very effective in disabling smaller tracked vehicles.

The teams have also dealt with several 500lb Mark 82 general-purpose bombs containing 87kg of explosive and designed to detonate on impact - although many clearly didn't. Deep-clearing on the Thakek road also brought to light a 750lb M117 bomb. Buried at a depth of just 60cm, it lay hidden for decades, invisible to the customers and staff at the Shell fuel station just 50 metres across the road.

Although more than 87,000 sq km of Laos are thought to be contaminated by unexploded ordnance, the Lao National UXO programme responsible for mine and UXO clearance, has cleared less than 44 sq km in seven years of operations. Government estimates are that clearance of high priority agricultural land in a country where subsistence agriculture accounts for half of the GDP and provides 80% of total employment will take another 24 years. Complete removal of the threat of unexploded ordnance for the people of Laos could be as far away as the 22nd Century.

Since November 2004, MineTech teams have cleared almost 11 million sq metres of land, including 23,689 sq metres underwater, and around 7.5 million sq metres that have been deep searched. Along the busy Thakek highway, the clearance process has involved deep searching 25 metres either side of the centre line, working right up to the simple houses that line either side of the road.

A $1.2 billion, 1,070 megawatt, private sector hydro-electric project, the Nam Theun II Hydro-electric Dam project, is being undertaken as a joint venture between Nishimatsu Construction Company Ltd and Ital-Thai Development PLC and in April last year it gained the backing and financing of the World Bank. When complete, through the export of electricity to neighbouring Thailand, it has the potential to become a significant revenue earner for Laos PDR which, despite a decade of strong growth, remains one of the poorest countries in the world. It will provide a much needed resource for investment in education, health and infrastructure.

More than 100 MineTech personnel are working to complete the UXO clearance for the Nam Theun II Hydro-electric Dam project. With better weather arriving in December, the teams are back on track and making the most of the dry season.