War-time 1,900lb naval gun shell found in central Vietnam
Officers from the UK-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG) on November 4 successfully defused a giant Vietnam War-era shell unearthed from a garden in the central Quang Tri province.
The naval gun shell HC Mk13, weighing 1,900lb (862 kg), had been found burying in the cassava garden near a house of a family in Gio Linh district, about 100 meters away from the national rail road.
The family was leveling the garden when their excavator hit the shell about 1 meter underground on Monday afternoon.
It is about 1.3 meters in length and 0.4 metes in diameter.
Officers from MAG arrived and transported it to another location for defusion on November 4 morning.
Local authorities said it was the biggest shell ever detected in the province.
Quang Tri is one of the most contaminated areas in the world during the Vietnam War.
Unexploded ordnances (UXOs) have killed and maimed more than 8,000 people in Quang Tri, even after the war ended 40 years ago.
Ten percent of the 15.4 million tons of bombs and shells used by the US military forces during the Vietnam War failed to explode, according to MAG.
As many as 100 UXOs are found every day around Quang Tri in both residential and farming land, Reuters reported.