The Associated Press
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
Seven Cambodian deminers were killed Friday while trying to clear a mine field in the country's northwest, the government's land mine removal agency said.
The victims of the blast in Battambang province were four men and three women, said Khem Sophoan, director general of the Cambodian Mine Action Center.
He said that after the simultaneous explosion of two anti-tank mines, only four bodies could be retrieved, with the others blown to bits. The cause of the accident would be investigated, he added.
"It is a big loss for us, we never have lost a lot of staff like that before," he said, explaining that only one other deminer from the agency had ever been killed in the course of his work.
Khem Sophoan said a villager who was walking nearby was wounded, and another female deminer was knocked unconscious but apparently not otherwise hurt by the blast.
The accident took place in Battambang's Kamrieng district, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of the capital, Phnom Penh, and the mines there were planted in the 1980s by guerrillas of the now-defunct Khmer Rouge movement, which then controlled the area, said Khem Sophoan.
An estimated 4 to 6 million mines and other pieces of unexploded ordnance remain buried in Cambodia from more than three decades of armed conflict. Explosions maim or kill many Cambodians each year. Khem Sophoan said 418 people were killed or maimed by mines last year.
He said that tragedy occurred when a deminer named Chea Huon saw a mine buried in the ground and called her colleagues over to see it, and when they arrived, the mines exploded and the seven were killed on the spot.
Seven Cambodian deminers were killed Friday while trying to clear a mine field in the country's northwest, the government's land mine removal agency said.
The victims of the blast in Battambang province were four men and three women, said Khem Sophoan, director general of the Cambodian Mine Action Center.
He said that after the simultaneous explosion of two anti-tank mines, only four bodies could be retrieved, with the others blown to bits. The cause of the accident would be investigated, he added.
"It is a big loss for us, we never have lost a lot of staff like that before," he said, explaining that only one other deminer from the agency had ever been killed in the course of his work.
Khem Sophoan said a villager who was walking nearby was wounded, and another female deminer was knocked unconscious but apparently not otherwise hurt by the blast.
The accident took place in Battambang's Kamrieng district, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of the capital, Phnom Penh, and the mines there were planted in the 1980s by guerrillas of the now-defunct Khmer Rouge movement, which then controlled the area, said Khem Sophoan.
An estimated 4 to 6 million mines and other pieces of unexploded ordnance remain buried in Cambodia from more than three decades of armed conflict. Explosions maim or kill many Cambodians each year. Khem Sophoan said 418 people were killed or maimed by mines last year.
He said that tragedy occurred when a deminer named Chea Huon saw a mine buried in the ground and called her colleagues over to see it, and when they arrived, the mines exploded and the seven were killed on the spot.
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