Transcript
MUZZ KENNETT: We've had quite a bit of success in co-ordinating with the communicating with the community and locating remnants of World War II that needed to be removed, just mainly for their safety and also to make sure that their communities and waters around their villages can be safe from unexploded ordnance. We've found 250-pound bombs and smaller ordnance, in one village we found up to 52 pieces of ordnance that we removed and detonated some explosives to get rid of them. It's working really well. We've been busy in the last five days. We've got rid of approximately 400 pounds of ordnance.
DON WISEMAN: Is it all in water or are you looking on land as well?
MK: Well we're working with our other partners up here as well - the Canadian Defence Force, Australian Defence Force and UK Defence Force personnel. Some of them are working land. But predominantly the Manawanui is working the coastal areas in the sea, found quite a number of bombs yesterday in about two metres of water in a lagoon to the north. So that was a good find for us. We found half a dozen 100-pound bombs which we gathered up and exploded yesterday afternoon.
DW: Are you doing the searching or are the locals able to isolate where there are bombs?
MK: I have a team on board of ship's company personnel that go ashore and do community engagement in the local villages. And generally the villages, once they are confident that we've built a relationship with them, they're quite happy to show us where the ordnance is. For example the bombs that we found yesterday - -that was pointed out to us by two local fishermen who we embarked on board Manawanui and then we took them up to the area and used our small boat with our divers and the Canadian dive team that we have on board. They went out and these local fishermen were able to point out the exact areas where these ordnance lie.
DW: Is it dangerous work?
MK: It's not dangerous in terms of that we make sure that all the villagers are cleared out of an area before we conduct an explosion. But the ordnance themselves are dangerous to villagers in that they often get hold of this ordnance and cut it open and use the explosives within it to go fishing with. And each year there's maybe eight to nine incidences where people are injured because of this practice. So by getting rid of that ordnance from around the villages, we're hoping to stop that practice and keep the villagers safe. There is also some evidence that some of the ordnance had mustard gas in it. So we're very conscious that we need to get rod of any of that type of ordnance if we come across it. I believe I've come across one piece in the whole operation so far which has been dealt with in the right manner. But yeah it's about making the villagers safe from unexploded ordnance which having looked at some of the explosions from yesterday, there is potential if people don't treat it right that ti could cause injury to the locals.
DW: How long are you there, this time around?
DW: This time around, we're here for two weeks conducting operations. We're half way through the first week. We're just having a day off now to collect stores and replenish water. And we'll be heading back up to the Russel Island group Friday morning and we'll have another week up there conducting operations in the Russel Island group.
