HANOI: Vietnam is seeking $500 million in assistance from domestic and international sources to help clear war-era bombs and mines and reduce the difficulties for its people and land contaminated by unexploded ordnance.
According to the Deputy Labour Minister, Bui Hong Linh Vietnam already has $200 million to de-mine 500,000 hectares (1,930 square miles) in 14 provinces by 2015, or 7.6 percent of the total affected land.
Unexploded ordnance (UXO) has killed more than 42,000 people and injured more than 62,000 nearly four decades after the war ended, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said that, “The task for the coming time is a difficult one. The Vietnamese government always appreciates and wishes to continue receiving valuable help and support from the international community to overcome the consequences of bombs and mines left from the war.”
Vietnamese officials named no specific amounts sought from the international community.
The U.S. army used around 16 million tonnes of weaponry in the war that ended in 1975, Dung said. The country's impoverished central region was subjected to particularly heavy bombing and mining.
Experts have estimated it will take hundreds of years to clear up unexploded bombs and mines which have contaminated a fifth of the total area of Vietnam, the world's second-largest producer of coffee and the second-biggest rice exporter.
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