14 in Cambodia die in explosion of anti-tank mine left over from civil war

Wednesday, November 17, 2010
The Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Fourteen people died in western Cambodia when their homemade tractor ran over an anti-tank mine left over from the country's civil war in the 1980s, an official said Wednesday.

The incident occurred Tuesday in Battambang province, 155 miles (250 kilometres) northwest of the capital Phnom Penh, while the farmers were on their way back home from harvesting chilies, police Maj. Buth Sambo said.

He said 12 of them were killed instantly, including a one-year-old girl, and the two others died on the way to a hospital.

The police officer said the area was the site of intense battles between the Khmer Rouge and government forces in the 1980s and early 1990s and thus was seeded with numerous mines.

An estimated 4 to 6 million land mines and other unexploded ordnance from more than three decades of armed conflict continue to maim or kill Cambodians each year.

Prime Minister Hun Sen said earlier this year that it will still take years to clear the once war-torn nation of land mines that endanger lives in nearly half the country's villages.

Cambodian and foreign deminers have destroyed 2.7 million mines and unexploded ordnance over about 200 square miles (520 square kilometres) and the number of mine casualties has dropped significantly, but the explosives remain a major threat.

Anti-tank mine kills 5, wounds 3 in Cambodia

Sun Sep 7, 2008

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - A truck hit an anti-tank mine in a former stronghold of Cambodia's ultra-communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas, killing at least five people and wounding three, police said on Sunday.

The victims of Friday's accident in the northwestern district of Anlong Veng included women and children who were traveling in a truck carrying rice to a mill, police said.

The area near the Thai border, was once a base for Khmer Rouge guerrillas and is where the group's chief, Pol Pot, died in 1998.

Recent heavy rain could have loosened the soil and shifted the mine onto the road, provincial police chief Menn Ly said.

Decades of civil war, especially in the former battlefields of Khmer Rouge, left Cambodia as the world's most mined country -- an estimated 4-6 million landmines are believed to be still planted in the countryside.

Mine-clearing teams have cleared over 400 square km (155 sq miles) of land but another 4,000 square km are still to be de-mined, said Leng Sochea, a spokesman for Cambodia's Mine Action Centre.

About 450 people are killed each year in Cambodia by mines, down from about 800 in earlier years. Many more are maimed.

(Reporting by Ek Madra; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

Two Cambodian men vapourised by anti-tank mine

Fri, 11 Jan 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - Two Cambodian farmers were vapourised by an anti-tank mine they accidentally triggered while cutting bamboo, police said Friday. Nuth Veat, 43, and Mour Koy, 41, died instantly along with the two cattle they were using to pull their cart, Kamreang district police chief in the north-eastern province of Battambang, Cheam Kimhong said by telephone.

"There was not much left. The bodies of the people and the animals were obliterated and turned to rain. We can tell what is what from clothes alone," he said.

He said Wednesday's tragedy was followed within 24 hours by another landmine explosion nearby which left one man dead and three injured after they played with the mine and detonated it.

The Cambodian Mine Action Center said the number of deaths and injuries in Cambodia from landmines and unexploded ordinance last year fell to 339 from 450 in 2006 but provinces like Battambang, which saw heavy fighting during the 30-year civil war, still suffer a rate higher than the national average.