THE TALK briefings
AL NATION
n o g n i d e e F s p a r c S ed war d r a c s i d g Recyclin s an industry ns i munitio
P
overty takes on many forms. But when it requires you to take your life in your own hands, it becomes more than just dangerous. It becomes a
killer. Such was the case in early January when an explosion at a scrap warehouse in Bac Ninh Province in northern Vietnam killed two children and injured seven. The facility, which was located in the village of Quan Do in Van Mon, Yen Phong, was being used to store seven tons of old bullets that had been bought by the scraphouse owner, Nguyen Van Tien. Tien had bought the munitions to extract scrap metal. Quan Do has been a ‘scrap village’ for many years — 500 households earn a living from the industry. In the search for a quick buck, however, the scrap metal purchases often come from dubious sources, including munitions and unexploded ordnance (UXO) from past wars.
The Real Victims
In October 2012, I visited the house of Bui
16 | Word February 2018 | wordvietnam.com
Manh Thang, a resident of Nai Cuu Phong, a small village in Quang Tri Province close to the former DMZ. The afternoon before, Thang had been dismantling war-time munitions on his porch. During the war the US dropped over 8 million tons of ordnance on Vietnam and Laos, of which the Pentagon has said about 10 percent did not detonate. Suddenly there was an explosion. The blast was heard by neighbours who rushed to his house to find him seriously wounded. Fortunately, none of his family was at home. The 67-year-old was transferred to Quang Tri Hospital for advanced trauma care. Surgeons had to amputate his right hand. He also suffered severe injuries to his left hand, neck, jawbone, left knee and both feet. When a local NGO, Project Renew, visited Thang’s house the following morning, they found over 200 pieces of UXO buried in the garden, much of it in easy reach of Thang’s grandchildren, who would often play at the house while their