Bomb left from Vietnam War kills four

Four people were killed and two others injured when a bomb they planned to sell for scrap metal exploded in their Central Highlands home, police in Vietnam said today.

The explosion killed two men and two children Sunday in Krang Village in Dak Lak Province, said Nguyen Van Luan, a Dak Lak police officer.

Two men injured in the incident remained in hospital.

Unexploded ordnance and landmines left from the Vietnam War routinely kill and maim Vietnamese people, especially in rural areas where many explosives remain buried in farm land.

Many of the victims search for bombs to sell as scrap metal to supplement their low incomes.

One of the victims in Sunday’s explosion, Y Bang Enhuon, 40, found two bombs while working in his rice field.

He kept the explosives, each about 4 inches in diameter, in his house, intending to sell them. One of the bombs exploded when Enhuon picked it up to show it to his neighbour.

Unexploded ordnance from the Vietnam War has killed about 38,000 people since the conflict ended in 1975.