Vietnam War Era Bomb Kills Man: Video
Cluster bomb left over from the Vietnam war kills a young man in central Vietnam.
Quang Tri Province, Vietnam (PRWEB) April 22, 2005 -- A man searching former
battlefields for scrap metal to sell has been killed by a bomb left over from a
war that raged here 30 years ago. 24-year-old Nguyen Van Chung struck a cluster
bomb with a hoe and was killed almost instantly by shrapnel wounds to his neck
and chest.
Many people in this remote area seek out scrap metal to
augment their meager incomes. Some even take to dismantling the bombs and mortar
rounds they find to sell the TNT and metal casing, often resutling in a grisly
outcome.
Clear Path International, a US-based non-governmental
organization with an accident response team in Vietnam, was able to respond to
this accident and will temporarily assist the family financially to help offset
the sudden loss of a wage earner. A dramatic video of the man’s funeral as well
as an eyewitness account of the accident can be found on Clear Path
International’s blog at http://www.cpi.org/cpiblog.
Quang Tri Province, where
this accident occurred, is located in the region formerly known as the
Demilitarized Zone or the DMZ. This part of the world received the heaviest
sustained bombing campaign in history.
Although the Vietnam War ended 30
years ago, by some estimates over 350,000 tons of bombs that did not detonate
when dropped remain in the ground. This ordnance regularly claims lives and
limbs in this still war-ravaged province. Since the conflict ended in 1975,
nearly 40,000 Vietnamese have been killed by by these munitions.
Clear
Path International serves landmine and bomb accident survivors, their families
and their communities in former war zones in Southeast Asia. This assistance
takes the form of both direct and indirect medical and social services to
survivor families as well as equipment support to hospitals. Current Clear Path
projects are in Vietnam, Cambodia and on the Thai-Burma border.
More
information about Clear Path International can be found on the web at http://www.cpi.org.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/4/prweb231896.htm