The MK-82 aerial bomb, weighing about 230 kilograms, was found on April 12 in the Mekong River when the water levels had dropped, CMAC Director General Heng Ratana revealed.

According to the official, since the start of the year, the EOD expert team had unearthed and safely removed five MK-82 aerial bombs and one 350-kilogram M117 aerial bomb in different provinces such as Kampong Cham, Kampong Speu, Kandal and Preah Sihanouk.

According to Ratana, an estimated over four 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 countries that suffered most from mines and unexploded ordnances (UXOs) as the result of three decades of war and internal conflicts from the mid-1960s until 1998. An estimated 4 to 6 million land mines and other munitions left over from the conflicts.

From 1979 to 2023, landmine and UXO explosions had claimed 19,822 lives and either injured or amputated 45,215 others in the Southeast Asian country, according to an official report.

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