Non-headline news of the day: Mine clearance mission along China-Vietnam border

Since 1990, both China and Vietnam have been conducting mine-clearing campaigns along their joint border.  This is to address the legacy of the 1979 boarder war and the skirmishes that followed. An estimated 2 million landmines were laid during the war.


According to China daily:

Around 6,000 people, aged between eight and 84, have been injured or disabled in Wenshan prefecture, 600 meters away from the frontier at the nearest, since 1979 after stepping on the landmines, which also killed a number of wild animals and livestock, Yunnan.cn reported in 2011.

In Funing county of Wenshan prefecture, one or two people are still hurt every year by landmines, despite many mine clearance projects and warnings and fences set up around mine fields and its Tianpeng village, 600 meters from the China-Vietnam border, was once infamous in China for having "87 villagers with only 78 legs"

 

Note the mine-protection shoes he is wearing.