Residents and workers in one of Kiribati’s most densely
populated communities are now safer after a joint
Kiribati-New Zealand operation to safely dispose of hundreds
of Second World War-era unexploded ordnance (UXO) items in
Betio, Kiribati.
UXO was safely disposed of on an isolated sandbar
(Photo/Supplied)
Supported by
the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, a
Royal New Zealand Air Force C-130J and crew, personnel from
the New Zealand Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Squadron,
New Zealand Army 2nd Engineer Regiment Zodiac operators, and
medical personnel deployed recently to Kiribati to carry out
the task.
The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) team
worked alongside members of the Kiribati Police Service for
a week to maintain a cordon and move approximately 300 items
by road from Bonnyman’s Bunker and then by small boat to
an isolated and uninhabited sandbar for safe
disposal.
Six of the items were eight-inch shells
weighing 120kg each, with 9.7kg of that being
explosives.
Some of the UXO items were in such a
severely degraded condition that they had to be detonated
inside the bunker, requiring 7000 nearby residents to be
evacuated.
EOD operators placed numerous sandbags
inside the bunker to prevent widespread damage, and the
heavy construction of the bunker meant the majority of the
blast and fragmentation was contained.
Zealand EOD operators and Kiribati Police Service move an
UXO to a Zodiac
(Photo/Supplied)
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NZDF Senior
National Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Wright, said
the operation was a great example of New Zealand working
with Pacific partners to safely dispose of dangerous items
left behind after the Second World War.
“This has
been a real team effort. We would like to acknowledge the
leadership of the Government of Kiribati, the support and
assistance of the Kiribati Police Service, and the Betio
community, which enabled us to successfully carry out the
operation.”
The NZDF and Kiribati Police Service
will continue to cooperate closely on EOD issues, including
building Kiribati’s EOD expertise to safely identify and
secure any future items discovered.
This deployment
builds on a successful run of NZDF UXO disposal operations
throughout the Pacific, with recent operations in
Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and
Naoero (formerly
Nauru).
