MOSCOW. Jan 28 (Interfax) - Military engineers from the Russian Armed Forces' International Mine Action Center have detected and defused over 360 explosive objects near the Thong Hai Hin airfield in the Xiangkhouang province of Laos, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday.
"The explosive objects found by Russian engineers are U.S.-made BLU-26, BLU-63, and BLU-3B cluster air bombs, as well as artillery rounds of various calibers," it said.
The Mine Action Center's unit including 32 members has been dispatched to Laos to provide assistance in clearing its territory of mines, the ministry said.
This has been the third mission of Russian service members to Laos.
As reported earlier, the first unit of Russian mine disposal experts started work in Laos in October 2018. They were tasked with clearing an area near the community of Lak Sao in the Bolikhamsai province, 350 kilometers away from the Laotian capital, Vientiane. The unit then cleared over 100 hectares of forested land of explosive objects sitting there following U.S. bombing raids of 1964-1973.
What makes the ongoing demining efforts near the Thong Hai Hin airfield special is the presence of munitions at depths of up to 170 centimeters and a large number of ferromagnetic elements, which significantly complicates the search and identification of explosive objects, it said.
The mine clearance units working in Laos use Russian-made detection and protection systems, such as IMP-3 induction mine detectors, MG-1I deep-earth metal detectors, MBI-P2 magnetometric bomb detectors, and PPO-2I subsurface detectors, the ministry said.