MAG Vietnam staff have discovered an historic tunnel in the Vinh Linh district of Quang Tri province, 42 years after it was bombed.
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A MAG staff member finds an item that local people had brought down to the tunnel before it was bombed. MAG removed 11 UXO from a 300 square-metre area near the tunnel, including three cluster munitions which were destroyed in situ. |
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MAG has cleared a total of 71 items of UXO from An Hoa 2 village, while 341 UXO and 18 mines have been removed and disposed of from Vinh Quang commune in total. [Photos: MAG Vietnam] |
The discovery of 'Mu Giai' took place after MAG was asked to clear land in Vinh Quang commune, an historically significant location on the 17th parallel. Local authorities have proposed the area’s tunnel network – an ‘underground village’ – should become a National Historic Vestige, fuelling a construction project where MAG’s help was required.
Though challenges loomed large during the clearance process – the site’s 45-degree gradient, and its close proximity to residential areas and a fishing port slowed down evacuation – MAG removed 11 items of unexploded ordnance (UXO) from a 300 square-metre area.
Built in 1966, Mu Giai was among five main tunnels of An Hoa 2 village, providing shelter to the local people and an operations base for the Vietnamese army during wartime.
MAG staff also uncovered many items which had been brought down to the area by locals catering for their daily life and war needs. These were handed over to the authorities for preservation.
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Vinh Linh district was the site of the 17th parallel, the provisional military demarcation line between North and South Vietnam during the American War. In 1976 the demarcation line was made redundant after Vietnam’s unification. A solid and unique fortification system of defences, with as many as 214 tunnels of different sizes, was constructed by the militia forces and the local people across Vinh Linh district during the resistance war. It was this system that protected them from fierce bombardments, the power of which might have been as strong as that of seven atomic bombs dropped down on the city of Hiroshima during the World War II. [source: Mr Nguyen Van Hien, Vice President of Vinh Linh district People's Committee] |
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“I don’t know how to describe my feeling when we found them,” Mr Tran Van Lam, of the Mine Action Team involved, said. ”I’m so honoured to be part of the discovery, and so proud to save and help the local people.”
The district, also home to the well-known Vinh Moc tunnel in Vinh Thach commune, which has already become an ideal destination for history-discovering tours, plans to establish a museum of tunnels as a memorial to the Vinh Linh people.
MAG has cleared a total of 71 items of UXO from An Hoa 2 village, while 341 UXO and 18 mines have been removed and disposed of from the whole of Vinh Quang commune.
“We believe in the development potential this initiative gives to the economy of the commune in particular, and Quang Tri province in general,” said MAG Vietnam’s Country Programme Manager Jimmy Roodt.
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13 August 09
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