Hai Lang, Quang Tri (17 October 2018) — 1,845 residents of three villages in Hai Lang District will immediately benefit from our Battle Area Clearance (BAC) operation which has started earlier this month.
Since 9 October 2018, two BAC teams have been deployed to Thuan Dau Village of Hai An Commune to clear a 500,000-square-meter Confirmed Hazardous Area that our Technical Survey teams had previously defined in the village.
Once the clearance is completed, local people of Thuan Dau, Tay Tan An and Gia Dang Villages will have more safe land areas to expand their shrimp farming and scallion production. More importantly, part of the land will be developed into a new resettlement zone for those families who live in areas that are prone to flooding, according to Hai An Commune People’s Committee.
Situated three kilometers from the Wunder Beach, or My Thuy, a former U.S. Army logistics and supply base, Thuan Dau Village was subject to heavy air and naval strikes as well as fierce ground fighting between 1968 and 1975. The village has sustained four deaths and one injuries due to 40 mm grenades since the war ended.
After six working days in the field, our two BAC teams have cleaned up 31,000 square meters and found seven cluster munitions, five 40 mm grenades and mortars. These dangerous munitions have been all safely destroyed in situ before end of respective working days.
A cluster munition found in the clearance site is being destroyed in situ. Thuan Dau, Hai An, Hai Lang. 16 October 2018.
Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) Survey & Clearance Program implemented at Project RENEW (Restoring the Environment and Neutralizing the Effects of the War) is funded by the U.S. Department of State and the UK Department for International Development and a cooperation project between NPA and Quang Tri Province Department of Foreign Affairs.
Project RENEW was established in 2001 as a joint effort between the government of Quang Tri Province and interested INGOs to “restore the environment and neutralize the effects of the war” – with the main focus on unexploded ordinance.
Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) is one of the leading organizations worldwide in humanitarian disarmament. NPA has worked in Vietnam since 2008 following the signing of an MOU with the government of Quang Tri People’s Committee to support the development of Project RENEW’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) capacity. NPA’s operational footprint now covers all of Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue Provinces, with an increase of assets to four Battle Area Clearance teams, one Non-Technical Survey team, four EOD teams, and 25 Technical Survey teams.
