[Ngo-lwg] 64 years after Korean War, North still digging up bombs

[Chuck Searcy]

We can safely assume that the U.S. and North Korean governments are
unlikely to cooperate on this humanitarian issue, at least not in the near
future.  CS




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*Associated Press <http://www.ap.org/>*

July 24, 2017

*64 years after Korean War, North still digging up bombs*



*By Eric Talmadge*

*Associated Press*





"The experts say it will take 100 years to clean up all of the unexploded
ordnance, but I think it will take much longer," Jong said in an interview
with The Associated Press at a construction site on the outskirts of
Hamhung, North Korea's second-largest city, where workers unearthed a
rusted but still potentially deadly mortar round in February. Last October,
370 more were found in a nearby elementary school playground.

According to Jong, his bomb squad is one of nine in North Korea, one for
each province. His unit alone handled 2,900 leftover explosives — including
bombs, mortars and live artillery shells — last year. He said this year
they have already disposed of about 1,200.

Fortunately, there have been only a few injuries in the past few years. But
Jong said an 11-year-old boy who found a bomb in May lost several fingers
when it went off while he was playing with it.

North Korea is just one of many countries still dealing with the explosive
legacy of major wars. In Asia alone, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and even Japan
have huge amounts of unexploded ordnance left to clean up.

The three-year Korean War, which ended in what was supposed to be a
temporary armistice on July 27, 1953, was one of the most brutal ever
fought.

Virtually all of the 22 major cities in North Korea were severely damaged
and hundreds of thousands of civilians killed by U.S. saturation bombing.
The tonnage of bombs dropped on the North was about the same as the total
dropped by the U.S. against Japan during World War II. North Korea is
probably second only to Cambodia as the most heavily bombed country in
history.

By 1952, the bombing was so complete that the U.S. Air Force had
effectively run out of worthwhile targets.

North Koreans claim 400,000 bombs were dropped on Pyongyang alone, roughly
one bomb for every resident at the time, and that only two modern buildings
in the capital were left standing. All told, the U.S. dropped 635,000 tons
of bombs on Korea during the war, most of it in the North, including with
32,500 tons of napalm.

Twelve to 15 percent of the North's population was killed in the war.

Charles Armstrong, a historian at Columbia University, said the expansion
of saturation bombing in North Korea marked something of a turning point
for the United States and was followed by the use of an even heavier
version during the Vietnam War.

"To this day, the North Korean government and media point to the American
bombing as a war crime and a major justification for the continued
mobilization of the North Korean people — as well as the development of
nuclear weapons — in defense against future attacks," he said.

Armstrong noted that the Hamhung area and the nearby port of Hungnam were
hit particularly hard by U.S. bombers because they were an industrial
center and home to the largest nitrogen fertilizer plant in Asia.

Nitrogen fertilizer can be used to make explosives, so the U.S. Air Force
obliterated the area in late December 1950. Later rebuilt, the fertilizer
plant is still functioning today and remains one of Hamhung's most famous
landmarks.

The bomb squads respond to calls when ordnance is discovered, check
construction sites before excavation work begins and educate people,
especially school children, about the dangers. Jong's squad, which covers
South Hamgyong province, has nine members. The largest, in Kangwon along
the South Korean border, has 15.

One bomb was uncovered in March by farmers digging an irrigation canal near
a railway that runs through Hamhung from Pyongyang to the northeastern port
of Chongjin.

"This railway was here during the war, so it was a target," said Yom Hak
Chol, manager of the 4th work team of the Pohang cooperative farm. He was
working in the field when the bomb was found and watched the bomb squad
remove it.

"We had to evacuate the area. The bomb squad blew it up over there," he
said, pointing to a narrow canal area where cows stood grazing between
sprawling corn fields. "It left a hole 3 meters (10 feet) deep."

Some bombs are not easily recognizable to the untrained eye. Jong said he
has come across a surprising variety of bombs and explained in detail one
in particular — a "butterfly bomb" that used wing-like attachments to
disperse small "bomblets" over a wider area. The bomb was originally
devised by the Nazis during World War II. The U.S. revised its design and
used them in North Korea.

Jong said many aging bombs have become even more dangerous as rust erodes
their detonators, and that some could go off with the slightest movement.

"I'm sure that my daughter's generation will also suffer from this
problem," he said. "I want the world to know that."

The rare access to Jong and the two sites on the outskirts of Hamhung was
granted after repeated requests from the AP.

North Korea's state media have also reported on the issue as part of a
monthlong anti-U.S. propaganda campaign conducted in the run up to the
anniversary of the end of the war.

The U.S. sent two B-1 strategic bombers on a training mission in the skies
near the Demilitarized Zone after North Korea's July 4 test of its first
intercontinental ballistic missile. Such demonstrations of power are
especially sensitive considering the historical legacy of the Korean War.

*Eric Talmadge is the AP's Pyongyang bureau chief. Follow him at
www.twitter.com/erictalmadge <http://www.twitter.com/erictalmadge> and
www.instagram.com/erictalmadge <http://www.instagram.com/erictalmadge>.*
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