60 years after WWII, Okinawa still rife with bombs

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Shryockstar at 04:10 PM JST - 7th May

A series of incidents this year—including the death last month of an American Marine involved in their disposal—have caused an uproar on Okinawa.

An uproar, really? The nightly news flashes a story everytime unexploded ordinance is found, and yet the streets of Naha remain as quiet as ever. No angry exchanges, no heated protests, no vitrolic demands for the Americans to leave...I'm not a fan of the heavy military presence on the island, but to call the situation an uproar is journalistic hyperbole at its worst.
knowitall at 04:35 PM JST - 7th May

Interesting how long bombs can remain dangerous.
nandakandamanda at 07:54 PM JST - 7th May

Okinawa is probably riddled with unexploded ordinance, but 'rife'here sounds strange to me.

Rife with rumors/rumours perhaps...
sharky1 at 08:04 PM JST - 7th May

Talk about an exageration...they make it sound like you see bombs everywhere you look. True enough that there are bombs, but running up on one is a rare occurrence. And that my friends is the truth.
OssanAmerica at 11:59 PM JST - 7th May

This article should be in Japanese, not English. The bombs are the fault >of the Japanese, who could have surrendered earlier.

What a stupid comment. Fortunately the US Govct is both intelligent and morally correct enough to cooperate with the Japanese in the safe disposal of these bombs, even at the risking Amercan lives.
beavis at 12:29 AM JST - 8th May

This article should be in Japanese, not English. The bombs are the fault of the Japanese, who could have surrendered earlier.

Albeit retrospective, this is the plain, simple truth.
OssanAmerica at 04:25 AM JST - 8th May

This article is not about blame or fault but a problem, not just in Okinawa but in various parts of the world. At least to anyone who can read.
Hotbox08 at 11:14 AM JST - 8th May

This article is not about blame or fault but a problem, not just in Okinawa but in various parts of the world. At least to anyone who can read.

Spot on! Some posters here seem to be under the thinking that the purpose of this article is to place blame. There are unexploded bombs located in so many parts of the world, and to place blame on one country (especially when it is that country in which the ordinance is located in), is pointless. What is being done to get rid of these bombs and such is what is more important. I remember watching an NHK documentary about a Japanese NPO which is doing a lot of work to safely get rid of unexploded cluster bombs in countries such as Vietnam, where these leftover ordinance still kill or maim people every year. After these bombs are safely exploded, Vietnamese kids come later to pick up the scrap metal to sell. They should set up an NPO in Okinawa to do the same thing, if they haven't already done so.
timorborder at 01:49 PM JST - 8th May

Don't know about Okinawa, but many years ago I had a bit of a scare while with the Australian Army in New Guinea (in the 1980s). It was late in the afternoon and one of my men was digging a weapons pit (trench). Anyway, he hit something solid with his entrenching tool (a rock) which started to sound distinctly metallic after he had hit is half a dozen times. On closer inspection it turned out to be a 250lb bomb (well the tail fin at least - we could also see the remains of a propeller fuse). Let's just say we set up camp somewhere else.
rogerbentham at 04:20 PM JST - 8th May

okinawa's lucky not to have been another hiroshima.
nandakandamanda at 04:39 PM JST - 8th May

Agreed, there are some really off-the-wall comments here.
grafton at 08:31 PM JST - 8th May

This little story is all about the work being done by some very brave men (Japanese & American) to remove left over ordnance from a battle field which in this case just happens to be Okinawa. That war ended 64 years ago & I doubt that there are any here who had first hand experience of it (This being about Okinawa the Marion may yet arrive though). So why are we reading so many bitter posts, why are there people here accusing Japan for these unexploded bombs? At this point in time there is no blame, there are only accidents waiting to happen. We can all read the history & believe from that that we understand what happened, but doing so is a mistake, because we cannot think in the minds of people of that time, there world was so very different than ours. Our world is so small & so fast, we think nothing of picking up a phone & talking to people on the other side of the planet. Television has for years shown us the world as it happens. That was not the world that they lived in & you cannot know to judge what their world was like to live in. The bitterness we read here was learned at the knee of old men, you no right or justification to keep it alive.
YAMADA90 at 02:03 AM JST - 9th May

okinawa people must be carefull
proudathiest at 06:33 PM JST - 9th May

OssanAmerica/Hotbox08> I too agree, blaming someone does not address the issue.

TokyoHustla> It is too easy to point the finger. And if this article were to be in Japanese, would it make a difference? Are YOU ready to do something?

sharky1> What is your point? Does it make bombs any less dangerous?
rogerbentham at 04:35 AM JST - 11th May

i agree, okinawans should be careful.