The straight road runs through the rubber forest leading to Cồn Tiên Commune, Quảng Trị Province. — VNA/VNS Photo Tá Chuyên

Tá Chuyên

QUẢNG TRỊ — Fifty years after the war, the once bomb-laden land in the area of Hải Thái, now known as Cồn Tiên Commune, Quảng Trị Province, has undergone a remarkable transformation.

Once scarred by unexploded ordnance and barren hills, it now thrives with lush rubber plantations and verdant melaleuca forests.

The local population enjoys a more prosperous and stable life.

In today’s Cồn Tiên Commune, the greenery of cultivated forests, rubber trees, pepper vines and fruit orchards blankets the formerly arid hillsides.

Modern farming models, combining livestock and high-tech fruit cultivation, have sprung up across lands that were once nothing more than desolate, shrub-covered slopes.

Nguyễn Thái Hoàng, a resident of Hamlet 6 in the commune, recalled with emotion that fifty years ago, he and other settlers arrived to find nothing but wild scrub, scattered bamboo and a haunting silence pierced only by the ever-present threat of bombs and mines.

Back then, the place was wild and dangerous, he said.

But today, the country has developed and livelihoods have improved.

“Local authorities, with the continued support of international organisations, have worked tirelessly to make the province safe from post-war explosives,” he said.

According to the Quảng Trị Mine Action Centre, more than 39,300ha out of nearly 62,000ha of land contaminated by unexploded ordnance have been cleared over the past several decades.

Nearly 837,000 bombs, mines and explosive remnants of war have been safely dealt with.

In recent years, the number of accidents caused by the remnants has dropped to nearly zero.

Deputy Director of the centre Đinh Ngọc Vũ said that the landscape today is unrecognisable compared to the war years.

People’s lives have greatlybeen improved thanks to forestation and animal husbandry, he noted.

“What were once barren forests, stripped bare by bombs and Agent Orange, have now turned green again. The so-called ‘bomb pouch’ of the past is now home to thriving residential areas, expansive rice fields and zones of modern industrial production,” he said.

The expansive green of rubber forests and acacia forests has revitalised Cồn Tiên Commune, Quảng Trị Province. — VNA/VNS Photo Tá Chuyên

Haunting legacy of land mines

Half a century ago, the Hải Thái area was synonymous with fear, its very place names evoking horror: the 'Hamlet of Death', the 'Village of Widows', epicentres of the most intense mine contamination after the nation’s resistance war against US imperialism.

Though the names have gradually faded with time, the terrifying memories of the post-war years remain etched in the minds of survivors.

Nguyễn Diễn, 67, a resident of the commune, is one such survivor.

Twice he narrowly escaped death from mine accidents, and now lives with permanent injuries.

He said that five decades ago, unexploded bombs and mines were found everywhere: among orchard trees, in open fields or buried deep within dense forests.

In 1977, as a young volunteer, Diễn was deployed to the Hải Thái area to help clear unexploded ordnance.

He remembers one incident vividly: “I had just pushed my combat shovel into the ground when I heard a ‘click’. Beneath me was an M14 mine, no bigger than a canteen lid. The explosion burnt my skin and shattered bones in my right hand. I lost sight in my left eye.”

But the trauma didn’t end there.

In 1982, while farming, he stepped on another mine.

That one took his right leg. Since then, he has struggled with a prosthetic and has been unable to work. It wasn’t until the arrival of international demining programmes like MAG and Renew that Hải Thái began to be truly cleared.

Another local, Phan Tấn Hoàng, also bears deep scars from the post-war period.

For decades, he made a living searching for and collecting scrap metal from leftover munitions, a dangerous trade passed down by his father.

Now retired from the line of work, Hoàng still trembles slightly when recalling the past.

“A single explosion didn’t just take one life; sometimes it claimed four or five people at once.”

Today, Hoàng channels his energy into preserving history.

Instead of trading in scrap, he has become a war relic collector.

His home now holds a collection of more than 1,000 wartime artefacts, including bomb casings and spent ordnance.

“To me,” he said, “each fragment of bomb or shrapnel carries with it the pain of a generation, of the people of Quảng Trị and especially of Hải Thái. I want to preserve and display these items so that future generations can understand the suffering their ancestors endured.” — VNS