PHNOM PENH, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia has found another two war-left U.S.-made MK-82 aerial bombs in southern Kandal province, a mine clearance chief said on Wednesday.

Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC) Director-General Heng Ratana said the two aerial bombs were spotted in a pit in Kandal Steung district.

"These aerial bombs type MK-82 with a total weight of around 230 kilograms each as the remnants of war," Ratana wrote on social media, with the photographs of CMAC's Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) experts removing the bombs.

According to the official, since the start of the year, the EOD team had unearthed and safely removed 12 MK-82 aerial bombs and two M117 aerial bombs in different provinces including Kampong Cham, Kampong Speu, Kandal, Preah Sihanouk, and Svay Rieng, as well as the capital Phnom Penh.

Ratana wrote in February that an estimated more than 4 million tonnes of aerial bombs and 27 million cluster bombs had been dropped on some 115,273 locations throughout Cambodia by more than 500,000 U.S. bombing missions between mid-1965 and 1973.

Cambodia is one of the world's worst countries that suffered from mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) as the result of three decades of war and internal conflicts from the mid-1960s until 1998. An estimated 4-6 million land mines and other munitions were left over from the conflicts.

From 1979 to June 2024, landmine and UXO explosions claimed 19,830 human lives and either injured or amputated 45,242 others in the Southeast Asian country, according to an official report. Enditem

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