In a previous post I was trying to tell a little bit about Laos history but wanted to get my facts straight. Here is some info, directly from Lonely Planet:
Between 1964 and 1973, the USA conducted one of the largest sustained aerial
bombardments in history, flying 580,344 missions over Laos and dropping two million tons of
bombs, costing US$2.2 million a day. Around 30% of the bombs dropped in Laos failed to
detonate, leaving the country littered with unexploded ordnance (UXO). For people all over
eastern Laos, living with this appalling legacy has become an intrinsic part of daily life.
Since the British Mines Advisory Group (MAG) began clearance work in 1994, only a tiny percentage of the quarter of a million pieces...has been removed. ...at the current rate of
clearance it will take more than 100 years to make the country safe.
Thank you, Lonely Planet, for filling me in on a piece of US related activity that I never knew happened. Funny how certain parts of our history are just "left out" so easily.
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