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Ddasaccident113, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

The investigators determined that the room being worked in had been cleared by the back-hoe but it had not gone deep enough to uncover the mine. Victim No.1 was using the detector and got a signal but he thought it was a fragment because the back-hoe had cleared the area, so he investigated it by using the pick directly onto the reading. The mine was identified as a PMN [presumably by inference]. The victim's pick was “destroyed” and his visor damaged.

Ddasaccident114, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

The investigators determined that the victim was squatting to prod with a bayonet and applied too much pressure. He used the presence of bamboo to explain why he squatted to prod. The mine was identified as a PMN from "found fragments". His visor was shattered in the accident and his bayonet was "lost".

Task 1c3 Humanitarian Demining Requirement Analysis Final Report, Cisr

Global CWD Repository

The Humanitarian Demining Information Center (HDIC) at James Madison University is developing a plan for identifying, analyzing, enhancing, and disseminating electronic and hard copy information relating to humanitarian demining. The first step toward realizing this objective was identifying the information needs, information availability and optimal methods for organizing and delivering information to the humanitarian demining community.

Broadly conceived, the humanitarian demining community consists of ten components.

• U.S. government agencies that have as part of their mission the development of programs for humanitarian demining in selected countries • volunteer organizations that are directly involved in the task of humanitarian demining …

Ddasaccident174, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

The victim was told to get a marking stick by his supervisor. While he was doing so, he stood on the "booster" of a PMN-2 that had been "destroyed" on 20th December 1996. The "booster" had lain hidden in a clump of grass 2m (or 4m on an attached sketch-map) from where the mine was "destroyed". The "booster" left a crater of 10cm diameter x 5cm deep.

Ddasaccident175, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

The demining team were clearing land so that an NGO could build a road. There was a deserted house at the site. The area was densely vegetated and strewn with a large number of fragments. Victim No.1 was a detector man. His partner cleared some vegetation and then returned to the rest area. Victim No.1 tested the detector a second time and went to sweep the area.

Ddasaccident030, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

A director of the demining company was interviewed about this accident on 15th December 1998. From memory he reported that the victim had been clearing a mine-belt at a village. The victim was a deminer and had just investigated a detector reading and found a fragment when the accident occurred. Without rechecking the area with his detector, he advanced and stepped on a Gyata-64. His foot was blown off but he had no other significant injuries.

Ddasaccident061, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

The investigators were unable to approach the accident site when they visited on 2nd December 1996. They returned on 5th December when the area had been re-cleared. Their report stated that the demining group were working on two sites, with 18 men at one site and seven men working at the other. Both came under an expatriate supervisor who was at the larger site 18k away). The track being cleared ran along the side of "an old railway embankment". It was described as "distinct" but "overgrown with sparse vegetation". [A photograph showed stubs of coarse grass in the path and …

Ddasaccident062, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

The report gave a timetable of events which indicated that the team started work at 06:00 and the accident occurred at 07:05 when the victim "prodded onto" a PPM-2. By 07:09 the victim had been carried to a safe area by two colleagues and was receiving treatment from the medic. The deminer "took deep blast wound to the area between the thumb and forefinger" of his left hand. The medic did not administer painkillers but "packs wound on the hand".

Ddasaccident063, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

Meanwhile deminers from another team approached and joined the two who had moved closer to the sticks lying by the missed mine. As Victim No.1 bent to pick up the sticks he stepped on the mine with his left foot. His body was low down and immediately over the mine. As he had been resting, he was not wearing any protective equipment. He suffered traumatic amputation of his left foot, amputation of "several" fingers of his right hand, a broken jaw, his lower lip was torn away, both eyes were severely damaged (resulting in blindness) and the "frontal area of …

Ddasaccident064, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

The demining group's spokesman reported that the accident occurred on a day when two clearance teams were sent to work at an area that had been previously surveyed and marked. When the teams arrived they found that the warning signs and marking system had been removed (presumed stolen). The teams had to determine the borders of the area to be cleared again. There was a path running along one side of the area and the two Team Leaders disagreed over whether the path had been inside or outside of the original marked area. They finally decided that it had been …

Ddasaccident176, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

The two men were close to the detonation and both suffered severe hand injury so a handling accident is inferred. Light face injuries including eye "burns" imply that their safety spectacles were not worn. If the victims were handling the device, the control failure is compounded because the demining group's SOPs did not allow them to handle devices.

Ddasaccident361, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

The Victim picked up a rock and moved back with it to put it to one side. He had withdrawn two meters when a dislodged rock rolled into the area he had cleared of rocks and detonated a Type-72a blast mine.

The Un Department Of Humanitarian Affairs In Angola: A Model For The Coordination Of Humanitarian Assistance?, Toby Lanzer

Global CWD Repository

This report outlines the problems of, and gives recommendations on the mine action activities in Angola. It looks at the situation which faces the Central Mine Action Office (CMAO) and the possibilities to improve the situation. The complicated relationship between CMAO and the National Institute for the Removal of Obstacles and Explosive Ordnance (INAROE) is of main concern. The aim was to draft an agreement between CMAO and INAROE and to assess the institutional structure in which CMAO was operating, to indentify problems, and to recommend an effective and sustainable alternative structure.

Lao Pdr National Unexploded Ordnance (Uxo) Programme, Ian Mansfield

Global CWD Repository

A brief country report from Laos and its contamination of UXO left following the Second Indochina War.

Ddasaccident065, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

At around 11:10 the victim got a detector reading and began "prodding and excavating the ground using a bayonet" held in his left hand. A PPM-2 mine detonated. The victim was knocked backward "about" two metres by the blast and was lying partly in an uncleared area. He stood up quickly, leaving his visor which had been "blown away and broken by the blast". The victim received first aid and arrived at the field hospital at 11:20.

Ddasaccident081, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

The victim prodded onto a mine at 07:55. There was a 45cm gap between the accident site and the "recognised face of clearance", indicating that the victim was prodding ahead of his end of lane marker. It was difficult to determine whether the victim had prodded the ground up to the site of the explosion

Ddasaccident066, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

Prior to the accident a two-man team including Victim No.3 were clearing a one metre wide lane. They were wearing frag-jackets, helmets and visors. The Team supervisor (a Uruguayan National) was not wearing protective clothing. He became Victim No.1. Another ex-pat supervisor (Pakistani National) on site was wearing a helmet and visor. He became Victim No.2. The deminers could see a partly exposed PMN about two metres in front of the end-of-lane marker stick.

Ddasaccident325, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

Despite the absence of a paramedic, [the Victim] who has the position of Team Leader in the organisation, decided to commence work the morning of 24th May 1996 on the security strip. At this stage the security strip had a large number of PMN-2 anti-personnel mines exposed by the machines and was very dangerous. He entered the security strip at approximately 12:00 and approximately 30 minutes later a muffled explosion was heard inside the strip.

Ddasaccident032, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

Victim No.1 was working downhill without his detector and was two metres in front of the end of his end-of-lane marker when the accident occurred at 10:55. He pulled a tripwire and initiated an OZM-4 that was a metre away. He suffered traumatic amputation of his left food. Two other deminers were slightly injured with single fragments to the elbow and chin. The Platoon Commander ordered a helicopter from Maputo. The platoon paramedic gave first aid. amputation of his left foot.

Ddasaccident068, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

At 10:05 the victim located a PPM-2 at the head of his lane. He called the Team Leader who marked the mine to be destroyed it at the end of the day. The victim and his partner then moved to another lane. When they changed roles (resting/demining) just before 10:30, the victim went back to the lane where he had found the mine. His partner saw that he had taken off his visor and shouted a warning to him. The victim ignored him and started probing a metre from the uncovered mine in the belief that a second mine had …

Ddasaccident067, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

In an "Accident report" supplied by the commercial demining company on 13th January 1999 the accident was described as having occurred on a narrow section of bridge that was left spanning the River "Lui" (the main part of the bridge was destroyed). The demining company had been contracted to clear the road and did not have responsibility for clearing the bridge. The narrow section was used to gain access to the far side of the bridge and continue working along the road. The demining team crossed it in order to work. When they returned the victim (who was a medic) …

Ddasaccident177, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

The Medical report recorded the time of the accident as 18:00, which is long after work stops for the day. From this it is inferred that the victim stepped on a mine in an area believed safe. That area may or may not have been previously cleared.

Ddasaccident178, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

At approximately 09:00 the victim detonated a PMN while investigating a detector signal with his prodder. He sustained a traumatic amputation of his left thumb and forefinger, grazing to his left upper arm and to the lower half of his face, and "a slight laceration to the cornea of his left eye" that caused 50% blindness in this eye. He was also bleeding from both ears. The victim was wearing body armour and a visor.

Ddasaccident069, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

In a copy of a FAX dated 6th March 1996 to another company (presumed to have been the victims' direct employers) the accident is recorded as "two members of our North Team were seriously injured in a landmine detonation while they were demining the bridge site over the river Lui". It goes on "both men are in a serious but fortunately stable condition. One man has regrettably lost the use of his eyes whilst the prognosis for the other man is slightly better".

The Norwegian People's Aid Mine Clearance Project In Cambodia, Gichd

Global CWD Repository

The objective of this report is to assess the project results of NPA in Cambodia and their use of costs and resouces. A further objective is to provide a quantitative review of the extension of demining for NPA's mine clearance project from 1992 to 1996. The report focuses on demining, mine awareness, training, capacity building and funding.

Ddasaccident179, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

The primary cause of this accident is listed as a "Field control inadequacy" because the victims were close together when the device initiated which indicates a breach of safety distance SOPs that went uncorrected.

Ddasaccident180, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

The demining team uncovered three Type 72a mines and called the supervisor to deal with them. The victim was walking over a cleared area at 10:30 when he detonated another Type 72a mine. He received injuries described in the field as "light". He was taken to Mong Kol Borey hospital arriving at 11.20.

Ddasaccident181, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

In the absence of any detail about how the accident occurred, the primary cause of this accident is listed as "Inadequate equipment" because the only identifiable failing is that the group did not provide the victim with effective eye protection (whether it was worn or not is not known).

Ddasaccident033, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

The demining platoon had "cleared 5,1602 metres and eight mines at Homoine before the accident". The mines were laid in a narrow belt but not in a pattern. The mines found before were PMN, PMN-2, PMD6 and POMZ2M. The victim was in a crouching position with his arm outstretched (holding a trowel) when he initiated a PMN with his right foot. He was not using his detector (which was 12 metres away). He was taken to hospital at 09:35 and arrived at 10:05. A blood shortage meant that other deminers had to donate three litres of blood.

Ddasaccident034, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

The victim lived 400 metres from the working area. While walking home from work he found an MVZ57 fuse [believed to be an MV-5 fuse]. He took it home for safekeeping. Before work the next morning he was examining it on a concrete table outside his home when he accidentally dropped it 20cm onto the table and it detonated. He contacted the platoon medic by radio and asked for assistance.