On Thursday our Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Team No. 3 in response to two emergency calls from local residents safely destroyed a U.S. rocket and two Russian motor rockets at their central demolition site. Earlier, these rockets were removed from two different residential areas in Vinh Linh District on the same day. On June 18, local workers in Cua Tung Townlet unexpectedly encountered a wartime munition when they were installing telecommunications cables in front of a community house. It was found at the depth of one meter. In response to their callout, RENEW-NPA EOD Team No. 3 arrived at the site and identified the weapon a U.S. Army-Navy 240mm rocket. Though its fuze was missing, the rocket was extremely dangerous and thus needed to be removed for safe disposal, according to Team Leader Truong Van Vien. Later on, in answer to another call from a teacher in Ben Quan Townlet, Vien’s team arrived at his garden in Khe Cay Village and found two USSR-made 122mm motor rockets, which could be easily mistaken as ordinary steel tubes. On June 20 morning, at the central demolition site in Trieu Phong, the EOD team safely destroyed three rockets in a single demolition. In addition to Technical Survey and Battle Area Clearance operations, RENEW-NPA deploys four mobile EOD teams providing quick response to discoveries of unexploded ordnance reported by local people, ensuring safety for the communities when they encounter deadly remnants of war in their daily activities. (landmines.org.vn June 20)
