Notes

UXO

The UXO abbreviation is used in many technical papers as well as being used informally. It is often stated as meaning "UneXploded Ordnance" but the US Department of Defence uses the definition "Unexploded eXplosive ordnance". The meaning of these phrases seems to change.  Sometimes it is used to indicate all Unexploded explosives including landmines.   Another definition is as follows:

"An object containing explosives which did not function as intended, or an object which contains some type of delay-action device"

Many articles use the term to indicate explosives other than land mines but it often seems to include the large anti tank mines that are generally planted very deep. A common classification of explosives is as follows:

1. UXO (fired military munitions)
2. DMM (unfired military munitions) (n.b. the D is for Discarded)

MEC

Munitions and Explosives of Concern (MEC) is preferred terminology by many people in the remediation community.

While this site tends to use the term 'humanitarian demining', we are interested in being able to help with all problems from Munitions and Explosives of Concern if we can. Examples of severe problems with other unexploded explosives occur in both Laos and Lebanon.

The country of Laos has the dubious distinction of being the world's most heavily bombed nation. During the period of the American Vietnam War, over half-a-million bombing missions dropped more than 5 million tons of ordnance on Laos, most of it anti-personnel cluster bombs. Each cluster bomb shell contained hundreds of individual bomblets, "bombies", about the size of a tennis ball. An estimated 30% of these munitions did not detonate. Ten of the 18 Laotian provinces have been described as "severely contaminated" with artillery and mortar shells, mines, rockets, grenades, and other devices from various countries of origin. These munitions pose a continuing obstacle to agriculture and a special threat to children, who are attracted by the toy-like devices.

In the aftermath of the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, it is estimated that southern Lebanon is littered with one million undetonated cluster bombs - approximately 1.5 bombs per Lebanese inhabitant of the region.

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