Hanoi - A husband and his wife were killed and their daughter seriously injured when an artillery shell believed to be left over from the Vietnam War exploded in southern Vietnam, an official said Thursday. Scrap metal dealer Truong Mau Than, 55, was using a chisel to remove the explosives from a 105-millimeter shell at his house in Dong Nai province, 60 kilometers north-east of Ho Chi Minh City, on Tuesday when the shell exploded, according to Tran Van Khanh, a provincial official.
The explosion immediately killed Than and his wife Nguyen Thi Toan, who was standing nearby. It also seriously injured their 13-year-old daughter.
Khanh said the girl had been transferred to a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, where she is in critical condition.
Police found more than 10 other shells of the same kind at Than's house after the explosion.
"These shells are left over from the war against the Americans," Khanh said. "Many similar accidents have happened in the province since the end of the war."
Harvesting leftover wartime materiel, including unexploded ordnance, to sell as scrap metal remains a common cottage industry in poor areas of Vietnam.
During the war, US warplanes dropped some 15 million tons of bombs on the communist country. The bulk of the unexploded ordnance remains in the central and southern regions of the country, particularly around the demilitarized zone which divided North and South Vietnam until the end of the war in 1975.
Dozens of Vietnamese are killed every year by bombs, mines and grenades.
