U.S. Project Aims to Find Forgotten Land Mines

One step changed Teng Sothi from government soldier to street beggar.

The 14-year-old soldier was in northern Cambodia 11 years ago when his left leg was blown off by a land mine--a cheap weapon that is designed to maim in war and continues its deadly mission into peacetime.

The Pentagon estimates that 500 people a week are maimed or killed by land mines, primarily in Third World countries where precise statistics are hard to come by.

“Casualties are primarily produced by mines that are laid indiscriminately in underdeveloped nations during civil wars,” says Lt. Col. Nancy Burt, a Defense Department spokeswoman at the Pentagon.

Land mines are cheap to lay but expensive to find and remove.

That’s why the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology is conducting countermine research at its test facility on Socorro Peak (known as M Mountain hereabout) just west of Socorro.

“I feel that land mines are the No. 1 environmental hazard we have today,” says Van Romero, director of New Mexico Tech’s Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center, which oversees the land mine test facility.

Sothi, now 25, was luckier than most who step on mines in remote areas, where there are no doctors. Most victims--mothers, fathers, children injured while playing or gathering wood--bleed to death.

Until last year Sothi relied on his family or begged. Now, helped by a French-based private organization that fits mine victims with artificial limbs and gives them job training, Sothi is learning to be a tailor. He operates a pedal sewing machine with one foot.

“International organizations and countries should help countries like Cambodia clear mines,” Sothi says. “I’d like to thank all the countries that have already helped, but there’s still a lot to do.”

The Defense Department estimates that 80 million to 110 million land mines exist in 64 countries. In 1993, 80,000 were removed; 2.5 million were planted, Burt says.

Antipersonnel land mines are easily manufactured. They require only plastic, a bit of explosives, some electronics.

“Mines can be purchased . . . for as little as $3 and can cost up to $1,000 to clear,” Burt says.

New Mexico Tech has a five-year, $5-million U.S. Army contract to test and evaluate new methods and devices aimed at making land mine detection safer, cheaper and easier.

Today, the most effective method of finding a mine is one person with a metal detector, working on one square yard at a time, carefully brushing away dirt and brush. If a mine is found, charges are laid and the mine is blown up.

It’s a difficult task because mines often have little metal in them, rendering them invisible to traditional metal detectors.

Mines also do not go inert once they’re laid.

“They have no parts to go bad. They’re simple, and they work,” says Dennis Hunter, safety and security manager at the New Mexico Tech center. He spent eight years in the military, specializing in explosive ordinance disposal.

There are three test tracks on New Mexico Tech’s facility, part of a 32-square-mile test range on the cactus- and desert shrub-dotted Socorro Peak.

Fuses and boosters are removed from the mines, both domestic and foreign, in a reinforced concrete building before they are taken to the field.

“They [the test tracks] are kind of like athletic tracks that have lanes on them,” Romero says. “We bury mines at specific locations at these tracks. We test all kinds of detection techniques.”

Researchers, working in conjunction with New Mexico Tech’s geophysics department, are studying how magnetometers can be used to detect mines.

“What we’re looking at is when you bury a mine in the soil, you remove dirt that has magnetic properties,” Romero says. “We want to know whether you see a magnetic hole where a mine is.”

That alone would not be a good mine detector, however. A better detector might combine a magnetometer, a metal detector and perhaps ground-penetrating radar and an infrared sensor, Romero says. A microprocessor would analyze the signals.

Researchers also are studying the use of robotic detectors as well as hand-held and vehicle-mounted units.

Detectors must be reliable, efficient, easy to use and relatively inexpensive. If a mine detector has sensitive computer parts and needs a lot of service and attention, it’s likely that it will eventually break down. And in a Third World country, it probably will not get fixed.

“The real promise is to improve multi-sensor technology,” Romero says. “What we are really learning is that no one detection system by itself will solve the problem.”

Patrick McDowell, AP news editor in Bangkok, contributed to this story.