Project Sekong 2012: Few jobs are as challenging as dealing with a huge bomb in a village cemetery.

Sometimes bombs are found in inconvenient places. Few challenges are greater than trying to work with a bomb near graves. Should something go wrong and the land is disturbed, the result can be very disturbing to villagers.

Report 18

The UXO/Lao team that stopped to visit this morning has an interesting dilemma on their hands, a situation similar to one we faced two years ago in Phongsali Province.

While we were working in Sop Houn we found a cluster bomblet on a hillside overlooking the village school.  Clearly, the ordnance was a threat to every child and teacher in attendance.  An explosion during school hours would have found hundreds of children either on the  playground or sitting behind classroom windows within that bomb’s killing zone.

The problem was, the bomb was also near the village cemetery. While, to our team,  destruction of the bomb was a necessity, to some  village elders, a detonation near the cemetery would be an affront to spirits; a disturbance that could provoke spirits to visit accidents or illness upon the village.  We faced strident opposition to demolishing the ordnance where it lay.

The UXO/Lao team currently has a thousand pound bomb on their hands that was found in a village cemetery.  The team would like to destroy it promptly but out of respect for local beliefs they’ve become engaged in lengthy discussion with village leaders about alternative methods that could be employed.

The UXO/Lao team is reasonably certain that they can use a  technique called a “Round Tom” in which  a shaped charge will blow the back plate and fuse off the bomb.  If done with precision (and a smidgen of luck) the bomb is left without its base fuse and will be inoperable. Then, the casing can be carted to a distant location and the explosive within can be safely destroyed.

The first problem is that this technique is not silent; the shaped charge explodes. If the spirits are disturbed by a huge bang, they may be disturbed by a modest one.  Concerned village elders are deliberating over that fact.

The second problem is that the proposed technique is not fool proof.  The most optimistic view that I’ve heard from experts is that the  technique succeeds “better than 90% of the time.”   The nightmare scenario that UXO/Lao faces is that their attempt to blow the fuse from the bomb fails, the bomb detonates, and 500 pounds of explosive blast a crater fifteen feet deep and 75 feet across.  In the middle of a cemetery.  (Imagine the refuse that might be pitched into the air and scattered about).

Our friends at UXO/Lao face a challenge that will require the best diplomacy and the highest technical skill available within their organization.  I wish them luck.