The next day a MAG Community Liaison (CL) Team is working its way through nearby Vin Thuy 1 Village, Quang Binh province, collecting data. Nguyen Thi Thanh Nga and her colleague Dang Mai Chi have both recently completed the CL training and are keen to put what they’ve learned into action.
“Our job involves visiting people’s homes to collect information for mobile tasks and operations for technical teams,” says Nguyen. “We also write case studies and fill in clearance reports. My favourite part is completing the post-clearance report as it shows the changes MAG has made to community life.”
Dang has experience as a technician and brings this to his new role. “My main job is to collect and record the technical information on mobile tasks,” he says. “It’s good to know that I’m making a contribution to clearing UXO and cutting down the number of accidents.”
The team visit the home of Nguyen Van Mua, a 66-year-old who has vivid and painful memories of the war. “I’m lucky. I believe that the gods watch over me,” he says as he recounts both the injuries he sustained during a bombing raid in 1968 and the UXO accident that occurred more recently in his garden.
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| Nguyen Van Mua explains the circumstances of his accident to MAG’s Community Liaison staff |
There are tears in his eyes as he continues the story. “I was 26 and working as a driver for a construction company repairing bombardment damage to the Ho Chi Minh trail. The crew was working at night by candlelight and was spotted by a plane flying overhead.
A few minutes later there was an explosion as a bomb hit a nearby truck. I was injured, with cuts all over my body, and ended up deaf. Local residents rescued me and took me to a nearby medical centre. It took me two months to recover, but at least I was able to work again.”
The recent accident happened as he was tidying his garden and burning a pile of leaves and rubbish. He didn’t realise there was a BLU cluster munition buried just beneath the surface. “When it exploded I was just a metre or two away. I fainted and my wife was very frightened. The whole village came and thought I was dead, but fortunately I wasn’t even hurt. Forty years after being injured by a bomb I survived another explosion. This is why I believe I have the luck of the gods on my side.”
Responding to the information collected by CL a MAG mobile team checked the rest of his garden and discovered the remnants of a BLU26. A relatively minor find, but of major benefit to Nguyen and his family who now know for certain that the garden is safe to plant and harvest.
Throughout the Province of Quang Tri, MAG is carrying out similar tasks, led by CL data that informs the technical tasks. Tien Kim Village is a focal point for the work at the moment.
Located in Gio Linh Commune the area surrounding it was once the scene of both bombing raids and heavy ground battles. The village is isolated and surrounded by an interweaving arrangement of evenly spaced rubber trees.
Standing in the middle of the eerie quiet, it’s easy to imagine running skirmishes taking place around this small community and villagers are still finding UXO on the surface in their gardens and near their crops, with items ranging from artillery shells to rifle grenades and mortar bombs.
Other sections:
» Introduction» 40th anniversary
» Thousands of bombs
» Deadly trade
» Clearing for the future
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