Practical problems in demining and their solutions

Afghanistan is a country where some ten million abandoned land mines contaminate over 530 square kilometers of otherwise productive land threatening the every day life of twenty million Afghans. Like most clearance teams throughout the world, Afghan deminers are confronted with a wide variety of mines (over fifty different mines produced by more than ten countries) planted to deny combatants the use of residential irrigation systems, agricultural and grazing lands and roads. Mines were laid by all combatants with little regard to recording mapping or marking of this legacy of conflict. The variations in mine type, terrain and military application produces a complex combination of challenges that generate the need for a “Tool Bag” approach to the clearance problem. No one solution will meet the needs of every situation. The technologies applied to the mine clearance problem in Afghanistan include: manual clearance using metal detectors, dogs, and mechanical clearance systems. The problems caused by battlefield scrap, ferrite soils, hard soil, gravel, roads, deep buried mines, demobilised vehicles in minefields, and vegetation, are discussed