SI SA KET: A villager suffered a fractured right leg when an anti-personnel landmine exploded while he was picking mushrooms in a forest near the border with Cambodia in Kantharalak district on Sunday morning, according to Khao Phra Viharn National Park officials.
The blast occurred at about 7am when Kittipong Srikaew, from Sok Kham Pom village in tambon Phu Pha Mok, tripped over the mine in the forest south of the Don Tuan Khmer Ruins in tambon Sao Thong Chai, Kantharalak district.
The explosive was identified as a PMN, a Russian-made anti-personnel mine. Mr Kittipong sustained a fractured right leg without bleeding.
Officials from the Khao Phra Viharn National Park and soldiers of the 123rd Infantry Company at the Phayungthong Operational Base rushed to the scene and provided him with first-aid treatment before sending him to Kantharalak Hospital. Mr Kittipong was later reported to be out of danger.
Priyapong Namso, chief of the Khao Phra Viharn National Park, said people living along the Thai-Cambodian border near the Phra Viharn temple ruins should be careful while going into the forest to look for wild products.
They should not enter an area where there is a sign warning them against landmines which may have not been removed in mine-clearing operations.
The areas bordering Thailand and Cambodia were battlefields of warring Khmer factions in the 1990s and plagued with landmines.