THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Unexploded bombs, shells and leftover landmines, oh my! The amount and distribution depends on the scope of the war, but even in Europe, a century after WW I, there are areas where shells remain deadly. Advanced technology does not indure every bomb or shell explodes when it should. And landmine technology is specifically designed to make them difficult to find and disarm.

For more than a century, the United States has used landmines, cluster munitions and other highly explosive ordnance during conflicts around the world, and sold or given these deadly weapons to dozens of other nations so they can use them.

Long after those conflicts ended, the deadly debris from these so-called explosive remnants of war continues to kill and maim countless thousands of people. The damage they cause to whole communities and regions by barring access to fields, roads and commercial centers is incalculable. They have crippled the economies of developing nations, especially those trying to mount post-war reconstruction efforts.

No one knows for sure how many active landmines and cluster munitions are thought to be scattered throughout the world, but experts’ estimates run as high as 100 million of them in 68 countries. Tens of millions of others remain stockpiled around the world, waiting to be planted or dropped.

Since 1993, the US has spent more than $2.3 billion on programs to clean up all of this unexploded ordnance, to assist victims and to eliminate aging stockpiles of these munitions. The US has aided in the complete cleanup of 15 countries, with more than 90 countries receiving some form of demining assistance from Washington.

That makes the US government, by far, the world leader in efforts to rid the world of these “hidden killers,” as the State Department described them in a landmark 1994 study.

Since then, there has been a sharp reported decline in landmine casualties.

Earlier this month, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), released its annual report on the 17th anniversary of the Mine Ban Treaty, which has now been signed by 162 nations.

The ICBL said landmine casualties, “perhaps the most brutal and indiscriminate residuals of wars past,” had fallen 25 percent from the previous year, to 3,308 victims. As in previous years, the vast majority were civilians, at 79 percent. Nearly half were children.

That made it the lowest number of recorded injuries and deaths by buried explosives since a global disarmament group began tracking these numbers in 1999. Back in 1994, more than 26,000 people were killed or injured.

Ordinance disposal is dangerous, time consuming and expensive. It is the expense that hinders clearance efforts. But the expense is not nearly as much as finding them by chance.