HANOI, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Laos, one of the most heavily bombed countries in the world, is accelerating the clearance of unexploded ordnance (UXO) to reduce the number of UXO-related casualties to no more than 100 persons per annum, and to increase the release of agricultural land for food production and the development of other sectors.

    In the first 10 months of this year, 3,305 hectares of land in Laos have been cleared, with the removal or destruction of 445 large bombs, 38,370 tennis ball-sized bomblets (parts of fragmentation bombs), 92 mines and 38,260 other forms of weaponry, Lao newspaper Vientiane Times on Thursday quoted the latest report of the National Regulatory Authority of the Lao UXO Sector.

    Out of a total 236,800 square kilometers of land in Laos, about 78,200 square kilometers are considered still being contaminated with UXO.

    Laos suffered from intense ground combat and aerial bombardments during the Indochina War. Over 580,000 bombing missions run by American planes dropped more than two million tons of ordnance on Lao soil during the 1960's and 1970's, the newspaper said.