Thursday, June 23, 2005
Minding the mines
By Damitha Hemachandra
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Aluthgama was a growing farmer village in the early 1990s when the LTTE attacks from Wilpattu pushed the village backwards towards Tanthirimale. The Sri Lankan Army took over the village and stationed a border camp against the terrorists. After a decade, peace has now come to the village.
Sergeant Abeykoon handling the remote controller Pictures by Manoj Ratnayake
Time has changed many things but one thing stays the same - unseen, unchanged, waiting for another victim. The Sri Lankan Army Humanitarian Demining group is labouring hard to remove the mines planted a decade ago.
According to Commanding Sergeant, Rathnayaka, who is in charge of the mining group in Aluthgama off Tanthirimale, their main job is to clear the area of landmines planted on a 15 mile radius as a defence line against the approaching LTTE terrorists.
“The mined line is disrupting the villagers’ path towards the ‘wewa’ and the paddy and therefore we are working speedily to clear the area for villagers,” he said. The group has already cleared an area of 2405 square metres since February 14 and have removed 185 mines. They plan to reach a deadline of the end of this month.
Mine clearance is done mechanically as well as manually with six teams working seven hours a day to reach their deadline. The MV4 mini-flail machine, a remote-controlled clearance system for mechanically assisted mine clearance, which has the ability to clear 1500 square metres a day, does the greater part of the work by removing anti-personnel mines.
The machine can be controlled by the operator using a remote controller stationed 250 metres away. With the press of a button, 34 chains with 17 flails, get into action digging into soil five to seven inches deep and blasting any anti-personnel that gets in the way. The diesel functioning machine has a life time of 1250 hours and will be discarded like a giant war hero at the end of its age.
After the mini-flail machine has done the initial clearance, two soldiers with manual clearing equipment recheck the ground with mine detectors.
First, a 10 metre long area with a two metre width, is cleared of mines creating a passing line and dividing the ground into square patches. Then starting from a corner in the patch, a two metre wide area is cleared demarcated with specially coloured demarking poles.
A blue pole is used to mark the beginning of the day’s work and its end, red, is used to mark danger, while white shows that it is safe to tread. Each mine found at the place is marked with the poles - with a yellow pole being used for anti-personnel mines and yellow, red and yellow for anti-tank mines. If a mine was not found according to the pattern, a red and green pole is set up to inform the other deminers of it. Any unexploded object found at site is marked with a yellow and red pole.
There is discipline and order within the demining camp site with special attention being paid to safety and precaution.
The end of the mined defence line does not end with the end of work - it spreads further than Aluthgama in to Atamune village, while the mine clearance groups are yet to receive orders to proceed further.
A mined futureOver 600 communities are said to be affected by mines with 1063 being injured and 194 being killed since the ceasefire agreement signed in 2002. Nearly 15-20 cases per month were reported immediately after the ceasefire in 2002 but the number had dropped to 4-7 cases per month since the awareness campaign launched in 2003/2004.
Jaffna, Killinochchi, Mannar, Mullaitivu, Vavuniya, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Ampara Districts and adjacent areas are the worst affected by mines. An estimated number of between 1 and 1.5 million anti-personnel mines, most of which were laid in the latter part of the 1990s, and unexploded explosives contaminate the North and East.
The strategy for humanitarian mine action in Sri Lanka focuses on resettlement and reconstruction, the priorities established by the National Steering Committee for Mine Action (NSCMA) and other stakeholders including national and international organizations.
Yet the danger has increased with many of the mined areas being struck by the tsunami, displacing people as well as landmine and unexploded ordnance (UXO) contamination. Emergency assessments show that there had been displacement mines with the tsunami just like in the case of floods but the good news is that they have not moved far and remained in proximity to known dangerous areas.
Moreover, the tsunami has changed the coastal landscape considerably confusing people returning to coastal sites as marking and fencing of minefields throughout the coastal area of the North and East too has been destroyed by the tsunami.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Aluthgama was a growing farmer village in the early 1990s when the LTTE attacks from Wilpattu pushed the village backwards towards Tanthirimale. The Sri Lankan Army took over the village and stationed a border camp against the terrorists. After a decade, peace has now come to the village.
Sergeant Abeykoon handling the remote controller Pictures by Manoj Ratnayake
Time has changed many things but one thing stays the same - unseen, unchanged, waiting for another victim. The Sri Lankan Army Humanitarian Demining group is labouring hard to remove the mines planted a decade ago.
According to Commanding Sergeant, Rathnayaka, who is in charge of the mining group in Aluthgama off Tanthirimale, their main job is to clear the area of landmines planted on a 15 mile radius as a defence line against the approaching LTTE terrorists.
“The mined line is disrupting the villagers’ path towards the ‘wewa’ and the paddy and therefore we are working speedily to clear the area for villagers,” he said. The group has already cleared an area of 2405 square metres since February 14 and have removed 185 mines. They plan to reach a deadline of the end of this month.
Mine clearance is done mechanically as well as manually with six teams working seven hours a day to reach their deadline. The MV4 mini-flail machine, a remote-controlled clearance system for mechanically assisted mine clearance, which has the ability to clear 1500 square metres a day, does the greater part of the work by removing anti-personnel mines.
The machine can be controlled by the operator using a remote controller stationed 250 metres away. With the press of a button, 34 chains with 17 flails, get into action digging into soil five to seven inches deep and blasting any anti-personnel that gets in the way. The diesel functioning machine has a life time of 1250 hours and will be discarded like a giant war hero at the end of its age.
After the mini-flail machine has done the initial clearance, two soldiers with manual clearing equipment recheck the ground with mine detectors.
First, a 10 metre long area with a two metre width, is cleared of mines creating a passing line and dividing the ground into square patches. Then starting from a corner in the patch, a two metre wide area is cleared demarcated with specially coloured demarking poles.
A blue pole is used to mark the beginning of the day’s work and its end, red, is used to mark danger, while white shows that it is safe to tread. Each mine found at the place is marked with the poles - with a yellow pole being used for anti-personnel mines and yellow, red and yellow for anti-tank mines. If a mine was not found according to the pattern, a red and green pole is set up to inform the other deminers of it. Any unexploded object found at site is marked with a yellow and red pole.
There is discipline and order within the demining camp site with special attention being paid to safety and precaution.
The end of the mined defence line does not end with the end of work - it spreads further than Aluthgama in to Atamune village, while the mine clearance groups are yet to receive orders to proceed further.
A mined futureOver 600 communities are said to be affected by mines with 1063 being injured and 194 being killed since the ceasefire agreement signed in 2002. Nearly 15-20 cases per month were reported immediately after the ceasefire in 2002 but the number had dropped to 4-7 cases per month since the awareness campaign launched in 2003/2004.
Jaffna, Killinochchi, Mannar, Mullaitivu, Vavuniya, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Ampara Districts and adjacent areas are the worst affected by mines. An estimated number of between 1 and 1.5 million anti-personnel mines, most of which were laid in the latter part of the 1990s, and unexploded explosives contaminate the North and East.
The strategy for humanitarian mine action in Sri Lanka focuses on resettlement and reconstruction, the priorities established by the National Steering Committee for Mine Action (NSCMA) and other stakeholders including national and international organizations.
Yet the danger has increased with many of the mined areas being struck by the tsunami, displacing people as well as landmine and unexploded ordnance (UXO) contamination. Emergency assessments show that there had been displacement mines with the tsunami just like in the case of floods but the good news is that they have not moved far and remained in proximity to known dangerous areas.
Moreover, the tsunami has changed the coastal landscape considerably confusing people returning to coastal sites as marking and fencing of minefields throughout the coastal area of the North and East too has been destroyed by the tsunami.
