Laotian Bomb Hunters

During the Vietnam War, the United States unleashed a bombing campaign of epic proportions. In an effort to disrupt North Vietnamese supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the US secretly targeted the jungles of neighboring Laos. Although Laos was declared a "neutral country" by the Geneva Convention of 1964, the US launched 580,344 missions over Laos from 1964-1973, dropping an estimated 2 million tons of bombs on Laos alone. To put that into perspective, that number is greater than the total of all bombs dropped on all nations in World War II, including the nuclear weapons detonated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Among other controversial weapons of the Vietnam era (e.g., napalm and the defoliant Agent Orange), the US deployed "cluster bombs." A cluster bomb was actually a 1,000 to 2,000 lb . canister containing hundreds of smaller bomblets. The canister opened in mid-flight, spreading the bomblets out to maximize the destructive capacity of the weapon.

It is estimated that 30% of the 260 million cluster bombs dropped in Laos failed to explode. Much of this unexploded ordinance (UXO) is embedded just below the earth surface, or hidden under the dense underbrush of the Laotian jungle.

I recently heard this story, about Laotians who continue to be killed by UXO every year. A particularly alarming trend among poor farmers is "hunting" for bombs with metal detectors in order to defuse them and sell them as scrap metal, as this BBC World News story describes.

A plan to detect and destroy UXO has been in effect since the 1990s, but the project may take 50 or more years to locate and detonate the over 90 million unexploded bombs in Laos. In the meantime, an international treaty to ban the use of cluster bombs has been signed by over 100 nations, including the Vatican City. The United States, China, and Russia still have not signed on.