CAMBODIA-MINING/RATS Rats to the rescue! Rodents trained to clear landmines

Record ID: 147313

  • Title: CAMBODIA-MINING/RATS Rats to the rescue! Rodents trained to clear landmines
  • Date: 13th July 2015
  • Summary: PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA (JULY 9, 2015) (REUTERS) TRAINER TAKING A RAT FOR A WALK ON TRAINING CENTRE VERANDA TRAINER LOOKING AT THE RAT CLOSE-UP OF RAT WALKING SIGN GIVING RAT'S IDENTITY TRAINER OPENS RAT CAGE TRAINER TAKING RAT OUT AND HOLDING IT ON HIS ARM TRAINER LOOKING AT THE RAT TRAINER PUTS THE RAT BACK IN THE CAGE RAT IN CAGE (SOUNDBITE) (Khmer) RAT TRAINER, MEAS CHAMR
  • Embargoed: 28th July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Colombia
  • Country: Colombia
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA567FW0YV64MHO5EUZHGBMMXRE
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: A team of elite rats, imported from Africa, is helping reduce the large number of victims of exploding landmines left in the ground during the country's civil war.
    The Gambian pouched rats are being trained to sniff out landmines that still dot the countryside.
    The Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC) are currently training 12 handlers on how to work with 15 large rats to clear Cambodia's farmland and rural villages of bombs.
    Their work could prove vital in a country where unexploded devices, including mines and unexploded shells, have killed nearly 20,000 Cambodians and wounded about 44,000 since 1979, according to the Cambodian government.
    The rats are able to smell highly explosive TNT inside landmines, watched over by handlers who tie them by a lead to a rope as they search through the grass.
    Deployed to Cambodia from Tanzania in April by Belgian non-profit organization Anti-Personnel Landmines Detection Product Development (APOPO) to help clear mines, they've been trained since they were four weeks old.
    Trainer Meas Chamroeun says he feels genuine kinship with his 'pupils'. "I live with the rats like brothers. We know each other's hearts. I take them to sniff mines, I can catch them, hold them, and give them food every day. It's like they are my brothers or my children," he said.
    At the training field, the large rats - some weighing up to 2.6 pounds (1.8 kilograms) - sniff TNT scented objects. When they stop at the device, the handlers are alerted, rewarding the rodent with a banana.
    "When I came here, I watched how my supervisor trained the rats and now I can train them to sniff the air or run around an object or mine," said trainer So Malen.
    Supervisor Theap Thoeun said rats were proving far faster at mine detection than humans. He said: "I strongly believe that when we put these rats out to detect the landmines that it makes our demining operation faster and so reduces rapidly the danger from mines exploding, because the rats work a lot faster than humans, five to six times faster. So the land size that the rats work in, 100 square metres, rats can work this area sometimes in less than 20 minutes, whereas a human might need four to five days to demine."
    Landmines and explosive remnants of war, as the detritus of conflict is known, have taken a severe toll on Cambodians. The Cambodian Mine Victim Information Service has recorded 19,684 people killed since 1979.
    Cambodia is still littered with landmines after emerging from decades of civil war, including the 1970s Khmer Rough "Killing Fields" genocide, leaving it with one of the world's highest disability rates.
    APOPO has used the rodents for mine-clearing projects in several countries, including Angola, Mozambique, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam.
    One of the biggest advantages of using rats is that landmines pose no danger to them because the rats are not heavy enough to trigger an explosion.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register