According to the Xinhua news agency, when the PLA soldiers detonated the last mine in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China on Thursday afternoon, they brought to a close their years-long de-mining campaign along the border with Vietnam.
"Landmines planted along the border have been plaguing local residents… To completely root out the danger of landmines helps pave the way for regional peace and development," Huang Taifeng, a commander of the de-mining squad, said, as quoted by Xinhua.
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The locals claim that their lives have "returned to normal" since the beginning of the PLA mine clearance mission, while back in the 1990s they often suffered injuries due to mine blasts.
Hundreds of thousands of mines were laid on the border during the 1979-1989 Chinese-Vietnamese conflict. China has carried out three large scale de-mining missions since the early 1990s.