Village Demining #2

I didn't really want to set the tone for my vblog by starting with these two videos - I don't generally hang out in minefields. But I only have a couple of travel videos, so I'll start with what I have. When I was in Cambodia, I had an offer to go into a minefield, and as a wannabe journalist I felt that I had an obligation to go and tell the story.

One of the guys that took us into the minefield has stepped on 6 landmines. The first landmine blew off his foot. The next landmine took off half his leg. The next 4 blew his prosthetic leg to pieces, and he hopped down to the NGO for a replacement. Yet, he keeps going back into the minefields to illegally cut down trees that he can sell to the Thais for $5 a piece. That is the life of a village deminer, and that is how he feeds his family.

The video was actually taken by Colin - but I was present at the time it was filmed - and have rights to redistribute the video. It was filmed in a village just outside of Malai along the Thai/Cambodian border.

The first video shows how village deminers search for landmines by roughly scraping away the topsoil with a shovel. The 2nd video shows the actual disarming of a landmine.

For de-mining photos and a bit more description click here:

http://www.geekeasy.com/travel/galleries/Demining.html

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Cambodia
• landmine
• mine
• village
• demining

[pentasa]

fuckin mindless

[jonbeer13]

I know this guy, and yes most experts say he's crazy, but, in the 20 odd years he has been doing this, he or those he has trained have not had an accident. In Cambodia acceptable risk is somewhat different to what we take for granted in the west.

[sochatchhiv]

My nephew is one of those de-miner in north-western Cambodia, along the Thai border. He is very brave and at time wreckless.

[hopoke]

cambodia has so much land mind that theres no soccer team out there, dang he played with tha land mind like a kid playing or taking a psp apart.

[pajeroz]

that's very brave of the cameraman and the people around, especially the demine guy or whatever u call it.

[olandish]

not a textbook example

[CAR209]

i understand him

[Kruxx21B]

dude. I cleared minefields in Afghanistan, and I wouldn't let the locals near me or my guys for anything. We would've shot them before we let them near us in a minefield. You were lucky, I'll say that. Dam* lucky.

Better to blow up the mines with a block of c-4, but afghanis actually harvest the explosives for fuel for their fires in the winter. Crazy stuff.