10 years is a long time, but 10 years after a war is not a long time. Damages to building still remains, mines and plenty of unexploded ordinances will remain, and psychological scars are still very strong.
I had the good fortune of going to Croatia (as an American) for work about 10 years ago, and I milked that trip hard. What a beautiful country. Dubrovnik, Split, Hvar Island, it was pretty magical.
Something I have really wondered is, why aren't there stronger incentives to build mines with a mechanism that disables them after a certain time has passed? There must be tactical and strategical reasons which are regarded more important, but surely the party using them for defending their own land ought to have an interest in not having to deal with this threat for decades after the war has ended, and an aggressor who wishes to take over an area should have the same incentives.
Or are the reasons technical, that it is simply too difficult to develop a reliable mechanism for disabling them?
Placing landmines is probably among the shittiest and most vile things someone can do.
Knowing that ten, twenty, maybe 50 years after a conflict ends a completely innocent and unrelated person, maybe even not born at the time you did it, might die or get permanently disabled is a sick move.
Place where I grew up is still full of landmines (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and some of the people who placed those mines are government officials today, loved by EU because of their natural resources.
I did some off road travelling in Croatia about 15 years ago, thanks GPS driving us into some farming roads.
Only when I got out of it, I realised how stupid idea that was to keep following the GPS, on some country side villages the markings of the war were still visible, with abandoned buildings full of bullet holes.
Naturally having mines still around was a possibility that I completly forgot about.
Just this week I talked to a person doing tree pruning/forestry, they were negotiating a job in a rural area in Croatia (wider Karlovac area).
The particular patch of land is still suspected to contain mines, although "in theory" they were all cleared out.
The client didn't want to pay for the minesweeeping tech team to ensure safety, the workers didn't want to wade into a forest that might still be mined.
I suspect this is not an isolated case. It's far from over.
Our firefighters collaborate with Croatian aerial firefighters (our neighbouring country). They say there is often pressure from politicians to drop water on wildfires in mined areas, however this is still dangerous to the planes as they have to go real low (a mine could explode spontaneously in their flight path) and after a few near misses they've adopted a policy: if it's not worth demining it's not worth saving from fire either.
I live near part of the WW1 trenches. Most mines, bombs, etc. have been removed for decades now. Still, there are patches where the ground is so polluted with e.g. lead that nothing would grow. We tend to use that ground for companies and industrial things, but no worries, its completely safe for your health, citizen.
As a Croatian, I'm really glad to hear these type of news. However, also as a Croatian, I don't quite buy the news. I'm sure great progress was made but it's never going to reach 100%; It's just the nature of these damn things in combination with our geography and where the frontlines were.
Genuine question, why is it very difficult even with our 21st century technology to accurately detect landmines for the purpose of destroying them after the war?
In order to be effective landmines need to be very close to the land surface thus should be easier enough to detect. Researcher in Japan has succesfully detect using low power radar sub-surface bamboo shoots since they are more expensive than bamboo shoots that are already grown over land surface.
For safe and fast detection mechanism close to the ground aerial UAV can be deploy to scan the the suspected land mine area.
Something is missing and don't add up here, perhaps someone can help explain the situations?
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[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 70.8 ms ] threadThe fire traversed the hillside, and every hour or two a landmine would explode.
This was ten years after the war.
Hell, Australia still has WW2 mines.
It's a group that provides prosthetics to people who have lost body parts due to landmines left over from the Vietnam War.
Even decades later, there are areas in Laos that have so many unexploded bomblets, it's dangerous to do stuff there, or even build.
Actually at the rate we're going, there will still be active minefield defenses for most of our lifespans.
Or are the reasons technical, that it is simply too difficult to develop a reliable mechanism for disabling them?
Knowing that ten, twenty, maybe 50 years after a conflict ends a completely innocent and unrelated person, maybe even not born at the time you did it, might die or get permanently disabled is a sick move.
Place where I grew up is still full of landmines (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and some of the people who placed those mines are government officials today, loved by EU because of their natural resources.
Only when I got out of it, I realised how stupid idea that was to keep following the GPS, on some country side villages the markings of the war were still visible, with abandoned buildings full of bullet holes.
Naturally having mines still around was a possibility that I completly forgot about.
The particular patch of land is still suspected to contain mines, although "in theory" they were all cleared out.
The client didn't want to pay for the minesweeeping tech team to ensure safety, the workers didn't want to wade into a forest that might still be mined.
I suspect this is not an isolated case. It's far from over.
Guess they will have more work now
They apparently also made a documentary about it, but I’ve never watched it.
In order to be effective landmines need to be very close to the land surface thus should be easier enough to detect. Researcher in Japan has succesfully detect using low power radar sub-surface bamboo shoots since they are more expensive than bamboo shoots that are already grown over land surface.
For safe and fast detection mechanism close to the ground aerial UAV can be deploy to scan the the suspected land mine area.
Something is missing and don't add up here, perhaps someone can help explain the situations?