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Clearing, cleaning of the vegetation
Before taking into account buried landmines, it is necessary to get rid of the vegetation and the surface landmines. The phase of preliminary clearing is a long phase (sometimes longer than the mine clearance strictly speaking), because it is practised by hand; it is dangerous because of the surface landmines . The removal of the vegetation, sometimes very plentiful, is to improve. The devices of mowing act locally in the contact of the vegetation to be cut; the mechanical blind action releases the surface landmines , either by moving the landmines of type "butterfly", or by acting on the tripwires. The traditional solution is to conceive heavy heads of mowing, resisting to the explosion of landmines but provoking this latter.
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The manual mine clearance, in which a small team ( 1 or 2 deminers) carries out mine clearance in a 1 m wide strip of ground, by using a metal detector and a manual probe (formerly the bayonet). The first one serves for tracking down the presence of metal in the soil, then fine search of the landmine is performed using the manual probe. This mine clearance is slow: a team clears of mines some tens of square meters a day. |
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The manual mine clearance, in which a small team ( 1 or 2 deminers) carries out mine clearance in a 1 m wide strip of ground, by using a metal detector and a manual probe (formerly the bayonet). The first one serves for tracking down the presence of metal in the soil, then fine search of the landmine is performed using the manual probe. This mine clearance is slow: a team clears of mines some tens of square meters a day. |
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Dogs have a particularly sensitive smell and can be trained to react to the smell of the explosive. They are used when the density of landmines is weak (operation of reduction of zone, to encircle the minefield); when a dog discovers a mine, it is necessary to look for this one by means of a manual probe. |
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There is a big variety of machines performing a mechanical mine clearance: ploughs, rollers, flails... Big machines of civil engineering adapted to blow up landmines. These devices are fast, but expensive and are convenient when the soil gives itself to it: flat ground, without obstacles, (30 % of surfaces can be handled mechanically). There are frequently unexploded or damaged landmines and an inspection of the ground is necessary after passage of the machine of mechanical mine clearance device. |
A detailed description and numerous links are on the Internet site of the association: www.artid.org. A rather important effort of research - development is dedicated to the settling of more effective methods of mine clearance. The European Union launches R&D's programs associating research centres and manufacturers to carry out mine clearance systems. It must be noticed that the results are very shallow: none of the programs ended in a system effectively used by the deminers.