A Vietnamese soldier stands next to a sign warning of toxic hazard at Bien Hoa air base, on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City (AFP Photo/Thomas WATKINS) |
Hanoi (AFP) - The US launched on Saturday a $183 million clean-up at a former Vietnam storage site for Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant used in their bitter war which years later is still blamed for severe birth defects, cancers and disabilities.
Located
outside Ho Chi Minh City, Bien Hoa airbase -- the latest site scheduled for
rehabilitation after Danang airbase's clean-up last year -- was one of the main
storage grounds for Agent Orange and only hastily cleared by soldiers near the
war's end more than four decades ago.
US forces
sprayed 80 million litres (21 million gallons) of Agent Orange over South
Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 in a desperate bid to flush out Viet Cong
communist guerrillas by depriving them of tree cover and food.
The
spillover from the clearing operation is believed to have seeped beyond the
base and into ground water and rivers, and is linked to severe mental and
physical disabilities across generations of Vietnamese -- from enlarged heads
to deformed limbs.
At Bien
Hoa, more than 500,000 cubic metres of dioxin had contaminated the soil and
sediment, making it the "largest remaining hotspot" in Vietnam, said
a statement from the US development agency USAID, which kicked off a 10-year
remediation effort on Saturday.
The dioxin
amounts in Bien Hoa are four times more than the volume cleaned up at Danang
airport, a six-year $110 million effort which was completed in November.
"The
fact that two former foes are now partnering on such a complex task is nothing
short of historic," said the US ambassador to Vietnam, Daniel Kritenbrink,
at Saturday morning's launch attended by Vietnamese military officials and US
senators.
Hanoi says
up to three million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, and that
one million suffer grave health repercussions today -- including at least
150,000 children with birth defects.
An attempt
by Vietnamese victims to obtain compensation from the United States has met
with little success. The US Supreme Court in 2009 declined to take up the case
while neither the US government nor the manufacturers of the chemical have ever
admitted liability.
While US
officials have never admitted direct links between Agent Orange and birth
defects, USAID on Saturday also issued a "memorandum of intent" to
work with government agencies to improve the lives of people with disabilities
in seven Vietnamese provinces.
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