The Last Echoes of War: Việt Nam’s Battle Against Unexploded Ordnance

On a quiet morning in Quảng Trị Province, farmer Hồ Sỹ Bay was tending his garden when his hoe struck something hard beneath the soil: an unexploded missile, a relic of the Vietnam War. For Bay, this was a stark reminder of the enduring danger posed by unexploded ordnance (UXO) scattered across Việt Nam’s landscape.

The United States dropped over 7.6 million tons of bombs during the war—more than double the total used in World War II. According to the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, this included millions of tons of ordnance from over 580,000 bombing missions. 

Quảng Trị Province, straddling the former Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), bore the brunt of this onslaught. Project RENEW, a leading NGO, reports that Quảng Trị City’s district alone absorbed 3,148 bombs per square kilometer, making it the most heavily bombed area in the country. Cluster bombs posed a particularly insidious threat, with dud rates as high as 30%.

The aftermath was catastrophic. “Immediately after the war, as people returned to their villages and began clearing land, the number of casualties was enormous,” Andrew Wells-Dang, a senior expert on UXO issues, told The Vietnamese Magazine in an interview for this article.

Children playing in the fields, farmers tilling their land, and families rebuilding their homes unwittingly triggered explosions. In Quảng Trị alone, over 8,584 UXO-related casualties have been recorded since 1975, including 3,363 deaths, with children making up 31% of the victims.

In the years following the war, Việt Nam faced this daunting task without international support and with minimal resources. The U.S. embargo, in place until 1994, restricted foreign aid, forcing the Vietnamese government and local communities to shoulder the burden alone. 

“There was a lot of clearance done by the Vietnamese Army and by civilians, just clearing their own land and their own villages,” Wells-Dang notes. These efforts were often dangerous and disorganized, with people using rudimentary tools to reclaim their fields. The human toll was staggering, with hundreds of deaths annually throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

The Dawn of International Cooperation

The normalization of U.S.-Việt Nam relations in 1995 marked a critical turning point in the UXO crisis. “When the U.S. and other countries normalized relations, there started to be foreign aid going in,” says Wells-Dang. 

International NGOs began establishing operations, bringing much-needed expertise, funding, and equipment. Key players included the U.S.-based PeaceTrees Việt Nam, the UK-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG), Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), and the German company SODI/Gerbera.

Funding grew significantly over time, primarily from the U.S. State Department. By 2024, the U.S. was providing the majority of international funding, approximately $25–30 million annually—a level sustained since President Obama’s 2016 visit, where he pledged increased support for war legacy remediation. Japan and South Korea have also contributed, mainly through equipment donations and training for the Vietnamese military.

To track these efforts, tools like the War Legacies Data Dashboard have been developed. Supported by organizations like the Stimson Center and the U.S. Institute of Peace, the dashboard provides a comprehensive overview of clearance activities, showing which areas have been surveyed and decontaminated. 

Quảng Trị remains the epicenter of Việt Nam’s UXO crisis, but international cooperation has led to significant progress. “In the late 1990s, there were about a hundred casualties a year,” Wells-Dang says, “but now, there’s less than ten, and there have been years where no casualties were reported.” 

This decline is attributed to multiple factors: improved reporting, comprehensive technical surveys, and robust risk education programs targeting children, farmers, and rural communities.

Despite this success, the scale of the remaining task is immense. A survey by NPA Việt Nam identified 1,270 hazardous zones covering 615 square kilometers in Quảng Trị alone. The clearance techniques are labor-intensive and slow. Unlike clearing predictable minefields, Việt Nam’s randomly scattered UXO requires careful, manual detection. 

“They use various electronic detection equipment, but the clearance has been mostly manual,” Wells-Dang explains. 

Innovations that have been successful for landmine detection in Cambodia—such as bomb-sniffing rats or dogs—have proven less effective in Việt Nam’s complex terrain.

To date, approximately a quarter of Quảng Trị’s contaminated land has been cleared, with estimates suggesting another decade is needed to address the known hazardous areas. The efforts have prioritized the most accessible and populated sites—farmland, villages, and areas near former bases—significantly reducing risks to the local population.

The remaining UXO is often in remote, mountainous regions where human traffic is lower, which helps reduce casualty rates. However, complete clearance is likely unattainable. 

“There will probably never be a time when Việt Nam is totally free of them [UXO],” Wells-Dang acknowledges, drawing a parallel with Europe, where World War I and II ordnance is still uncovered but rarely causes harm. 

The goal in Việt Nam is similar: to reach a point where UXO is no longer a major daily threat, but a manageable problem handled by routine disposal teams.

Despite this progress, the human toll remains profound; children often mistake the small, shiny, toy-like cluster bombs for harmless objects. A 2022 Mines Advisory Group (MAG) report recounts the story of a young boy in Quảng Nam who lost his hand after picking up a cluster munition while playing. Such incidents underscore the need for the ongoing risk education programs that have been instrumental in reducing casualties.

The backbone of the dangerous clearance work is the local communities themselves. Vietnamese civilians, often hired and trained by NGOs, navigate hazardous terrain with courage and discipline. The Vietnamese military also conducts its own clearance operations, supplementing the work of the international groups. Nevertheless, accidents, though rare, still occur.

This entire effort is heavily reliant on international funding, particularly from the U.S. State Department. 

In 2022 alone, MAG destroyed over 14,600 UXO items in Việt Nam. However, the future success of this important work is now being threatened by funding cuts by the U.S. 

In early 2025, the Trump administration briefly suspended UXO funding as part of broader foreign aid cuts, forcing NGOs to lay off staff and temporarily halt operations. While funding was eventually restored, Wells-Dang cautions that "people in the administration have made a lot of unintelligent decisions for no obvious reason," and the future remains uncertain. 

The restoration of funding reflects bipartisan recognition of UXO clearance as a low-cost, high-impact way to strengthen U.S.-Vietnam relations. For now, the U.S. policy of funding NGOs rather than the Vietnamese military allows the support to be classified as humanitarian aid, aligning with diplomatic sensitivities. 

The Vietnamese government, while appreciative, does not expect this aid to be indefinite and continues to build its own capacity. 

Towards an UXO-Safe Việt Nam

The ultimate goal of these efforts is to create an “UXO-safe” Việt Nam, where the threat is minimal and manageable.

In Quảng Trị, this vision is within reach; if current efforts are sustained, the province could clear all known hazardous areas within a decade, allowing the focus to shift to other affected regions like Quảng Bình or Quảng Nam. This is a more realistic goal than exaggerated estimates of a 300-year cleanup, which, Wells-Dang notes, are based on clearing every last bomb rather than prioritizing high-risk areas.

Unlike the more complex legacies of the war, such as the health impacts of Agent Orange or the search for missing soldiers, clearing UXO is, according to Wells-Dang, a “technical problem that can be solved.” 

For the United States, supporting this effort is both a moral and strategic imperative. “My view is, it’s the U.S.’s responsibility to do so,” Wells-Dang asserts, reflecting on the war’s devastating impact. The $25–30 million annual investment is a small price to pay compared to the human cost of inaction.

Việt Nam’s progress offers a model of hope. The drop in annual casualties from hundreds to fewer than ten is a testament to what can be achieved through local resilience, international cooperation, and advancements in technology.

Yet, for farmers like Hồ Sỹ Bay and for children playing in fields, the shadow of the war remains as long as these dangers are buried in the soil. As Wells-Dang emphasizes, “It’s taken 50 years to get to this point... better late than never.” 

The task now is to ensure that Việt Nam’s future is finally free from the explosive remnants of its past.