He inadvertently uncover-ed the bomb just outside the temple in Oudom village, Khamkeuth district, while he was working on the road this week.
Mr Phone said he was driving his bulldozer some time on Tuesday morning, cutting back the roadway so that it could be resurfaced. “It was a very big shock when, as I was digging up the road, I saw this really big bomb. I did not know what to do, so I abandoned the bulldozer and ran away in case the bomb blew up,” he said.
Luckily, some unexploded ordnance (UXO) experts from Solidarity Service International (SODI) were working in the area at the time, and were able to come and investigate before too much time had passed.
The SODI experts identified the bomb as an American made 2000 pound heavy artillery weapon, and said that if it was interrupted or disturbed in any way, it could explode at any time.
Mr Phone told the SODI clearance workers that the blade of his bulldozer hit the bomb two or three times while he was driving up and down before he noticed that it was there.
They told him he was very lucky to be alive. In fact, they told him the 2000 pound bomb was capable of destroying everything within a two kilometre radius, and he could have inadvertently blown up the temple.
The SODI workers lacked the equipment necessary to remove and disarm the bomb at the time, but they wanted to make sure no one was tempted to interfere with the bomb, which would have been worth quite a bit to a scrap metal dealer. They put the bomb back in its underground bunker temporarily by putting 400 sandbags on top of it.
They requested assistance from the Japan Mine Action Service and the Lao National Regulatory Authority for UXO/Mine Action Sectors in Laos (NRA), who assign field tasks to UXO Lao to bring in the modern technology required to dispose of bombs safely, and get rid of more of the munitions that have haunted Laos for so long.
It is estimated that out of the 2 million tonnes of bombs, including 288 million cluster bombs, that were dropped on Laos between 1964 and 1973, about 30 percent did not detonate. During this period, a total of 580,000 deadly bombing missions were conducted. That averages out at one bombing mission every eight minutes around the clock for nine years.
According to the NRA, by 2015, Laos aims to clear 12,500 hectares of contaminated land, of which more than 11,800 hectares will be used for agriculture and the rest for other forms of development. More than 28,000 hectares of UXO-contaminated land have been cleared since 1996. By 2020 the country aims to have cleared UXO from 200,000 hectares of land.
Khamkeuth is a mountainous district that borders with Vietnam, and was heavily bombed because it formed part of the Ho Chi Minh trail. The district is also very poor due to the lack of roads in the area.
Road building is one of the key thrusts of the government's development drive, as it gives villagers access to markets, schools and health services. As the funding becomes available there are likely to be many more road building projects, so it is possible that more such incidents could occur. Mr Phone, meanwhile, might want to buy himself a lottery ticket, because there is every chance the event could have ended in tragedy.
By Khonesavanh Latsaphao
(Latest Update January 6 , 2012)
(Latest Update January 6 , 2012)
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