The BACTEC team is now fully deployed in the Falkland Islands clearing three minefields: two in the vicinity of Mile Pond and Mullet creek and the third south of the water tanks on the Stanley to Darwin and Goose Green Road. The mine-clearance project for these areas should be over by the end of March.
The third phase of explosive ordnance and landmine clearance in the Falkland Islands is scheduled to begin next January and extend until March 2013 and is programmed to concentrate in the surrounding of the capital Stanley.
Thirty years after the end of the South Atlantic conflict, the people of the Falkland Islands will be recovering an iconic leisure ground which remained banned for three decades because of the mines planted by the retreating Argentine forces that invaded the Islands 2 April 1982.
Next March 26 the Falkland Islands will be holding an ‘opening’ ceremony to celebrate the release of another 3.5 square kilometres which have been cleared from mines and other explosives planted by Argentine forces during the 1982 invasion.
A project to release land from antipersonnel mines planted by the Argentine invaded forces during the 1982 Falklands conflict is “progressing solidly” said Guy Lucas, Chief Executive Officer from BACTEC a group which specializes in explosive ordnance, mine action and bomb disposal.
The team from BACTEC International Ltd that will be carrying out the second phase of the demining pilot project is in the Falklands are in the Islands and will look to release significant areas of land behind the Stanley Common fence to the South-west of the capital.
Robin Swanson, head of the Demining Program Office and visiting the Falkland Islands this week ahead of the new phase of land-mine clearance due to start early next year, confirmed that the forthcoming planned clearances will advance the demining process from the pilot stage to a more advanced “land release” phase.
A SECOND phase of de-mining is planned on the Falkland Islands from November this year.
Completion of the Falkland Islands Programme phase 1 is now a reality. The De-mining Contractor, BACTEC International Ltd, has persevered through one of the coldest and wettest summers to deliver a successful project within the single austral summer period that was demanded within the contract. Like all demanding programmes, many lessons have been learned but only a few will be elaborated in this article.