[Ngo-lwg] Fwd: South Korea donates 200 mine detectors to Vietnam province

[Chuck Searcy]

*VNEXPRESS
<https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/south-korea-donates-200-mine-detectors-to-vietnam-province-3897101.html>*
March 20, 2019

South Korea donates 200 mine detectors to Vietnam province
By Hoang Tao
[image: South Korea donates 200 mine detectors to Vietnam province]
Mine detectors donated by South Korea to Quang Binh Province are presented
at a ceremony on Tuesday. *Photo by VnExpress/Hoang Tao*
A South Korean development agency has donated 200 mines detectors to Quang
Binh Province in central Vietnam.

The Vietnam National Mine Action Center (VNMAC) received the devices from
the Korea International Cooperation Agency and the United Nations
Development Programme at a ceremony in the province on Tuesday.

Speaking at the ceremony, VNMAC deputy general director Nguyen Hanh Phuc
said the devices with their modern features would help accurately pinpoint
the locations of bombs, mines and UXO still buried in the ground.

Using these data, the center would set up a database on polluted and
cleared areas, which is among key land management data for the province.

The donation of the devices was made under the framework of a Vietnam-South
Korea cooperation project to mitigate the losses caused by war-era bombs
and mines launched in March last year.

The project has received $20 million from South Korea to clear UXO in an
area of around 8,000 hectares (20,000 acres) in Quang Binh and Binh Dinh
Provinces. Some 224,000 ha of land in Quang Binh, or 30 percent of its
total area, is contaminated by UXO.

In the first year of the project VNMAC surveyed 4,600 ha in Quang Binh and
Binh Dinh and found many places contaminated by UXO, training 230
officials from the Ministry of Defense on UXO survey and detection.

The project has also helped raise awareness of prevention of UXO-related
accidents among residents in 14 communes in five districts.

According to statistics from the Technology Center for Bomb and Mine
Disposal, all 159 of Quang Binh Province's communes, wards and towns
are contaminated
by UXO
<https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/350-kg-wartime-bomb-found-near-national-highway-in-central-vietnam-3894839.html>,
which is spread over an area of over 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) or
28.2 percent of the province's total area.

Since 1975 UXO-related accidents in the province have killed over 2,930
people and injured another 3,820.
================================
CHUCK SEARCY
President, VFP Chapter 160
International Advisor, Project RENEW
Co-chair, Agent Orange Working Group
71 Trần Quốc Toản
Hà Nội, Việt Nam
Email       chuckusvn at gmail.com
Skype      chucksearcy
Cell VN    +8 490 342 0769
Cell US    +1 404 740 0653
Web         www.landmines.org.vn

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