Vietnam War-era tear gas bombs found in Cambodian village

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – Demining experts say a village in eastern Cambodia will have to be largely evacuated next month when two large bombs left over from the Vietnam War containing a powerful tear gas are excavated from the grounds of a Buddhist temple.

Heng Ratana, director of Cambodian Mine Action Center, said Tuesday that four bombs with CS gas were dropped in the village in Svay Rieng province by U.S. aircraft in February 1970, and two that didn't explode were buried by villagers.

The United States secretly bombed eastern Cambodia beginning in 1969 to hinder its use as a sanctuary for communist Vietnamese forces attacking what was then U.S.-backed South Vietnam.

U.S. forces, which openly intervened in 1970, dropped about 2.8 million tons of bombs on Cambodia until halting the bombing in 1973.