Farmers in Laos risk their lives to unearth scrap metal

After 30 years, there are still around nine million unexploded American bombs. Poverty and hunger prompt farmers to dislodge the ordinances to sell the metal and explosives.

Vientiane (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Many unexploded American bombs lie in gardens and fields in Laos. From time to time, farmers try to dislodge them to sell them. Often they explode and sent hundreds of pieces of metal shrapnel flying in all directions at a speed of 2km per second.

In the villages of Xieng Khuang province in the mountains of northern Laos, parents live in fear of the bombs and they cannot leave children alone.

Phomm Mma is a farmer with a 453kg bomb in his garden. "I can remember the American planes dropping the bombs like rain in 1973 when I was a boy," he said. "I never thought they would still be killing us 30 years later."

The increase in the price of steel as well as heightened demand for bomb casings, artillery shells, and prized aluminium parts from crashed airplanes, has led to a rise in the number of explosions and deaths. A farmer could earn around 16.6 million kip (12,000 US dollars) per year from this activity. Scrap steel sells for more than 1,600 kip per kilo and the explosive extracted from bombs (used for mining) fetches up 50,000 kip per kilo.

Khamsing Maliya, director of the orphanage of the province, said that most of the 130 children there lost their parents to bombs.

Northern Laos was subjected to the heaviest bombing in history. Its fields are littered with craters caused by explosions which are decades old. More than 580,000 air raids were carried out and more than two million tones of explosives dropped, especially on the province of Xieng Khuang. It is estimated that  around 30% of the bombs did not explode and there could be up to nine million ordinances left.

Mick Hayes, a bomb disposal expert and former operations manager of Mines Action Group in Laos, said: "Farmers understand the risks very well. They collect bombs to sell because they are desperate to feed their families. There's little paid work up here and much of the land is too dangerous to cultivate."

• LAOS
• SOCIETY
• ECONOMY
• MINES
• BOMBS
• SCRAP
• FARMERS
• POOR