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Humanitarian Mine Action

WADS: Quicker, cheaper and safer

“In a sense, you can say that Angola is “a land of thousands islands”. Small communities isolated from each other by landmines”, says Erik Tollefsen, mine clearance specialist at Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining, GICHD . The GICHD is UNs knowledge database concerning mine clearance.

Focus on roads

“No matter which local authorities I’ve been talking to worldwide, I almost get the same answer: The roads must be cleared. Seeing Angola as “a land of thousands isolated islands”, bridges thus need to be built to get trade going; to make access for farmers to the market; to circulate food and medicine; and to turn Angola into a land worth returning to for the refugees”, says Erik Tollefsen.

Clearing the roads for landmines is exactly what DanChurchAid’s newly developed mine clearance system, WADS, can do.

WADS is developed to detect landmines along the thousands of kilometres of mine affected roads in Angola as well as other mine affected countries.

One of the leading mine clearing systems

Erik Tollefsen underlines that the system meet three important mine clearance requirements: it is quicker, it improves the safety and quality of the work, and it is cheaper.

© Bastard Film

Clearing roads for landmines has prior to the WADS been done by deminers surveying the area with metal detectors, and digging every time the detector gives a signal –no matter whether it is a landmine or just a bottle cap.

Another way of demining non-surfaced roads has been the use of a mine flail thrashing of the ground ahead of the tank with revolving weighted chains driven by an engine. The thrashing detonated the mines to clear a lane through the minefield. The disadvantage is obvious – the roads are destroyed and the result is therefore often that people drive off the roads, into unsafe areas.

Others have tried developing similar methods as DanChurchAid’s WADS. However, as stated by Erik Tollefsen, nothing compares to WADS today in safety and effectiveness.

© Bastard Film

“The WADS is cheaper and easier to repair because it consists of common “off-the-shelf items”. The system is also more accurate. All information is digital and can be cleaned for electronic noise making the mine identification much easier. The WADS scans the road into a depth of 1 meter and is thus able to detect low-lying landmines. An ordinary detector only scans about 30 centimetres below”, Erik Tollefsen says.

Not a panacea for all mine problems

Although Erik Tollefsen is very pleased with the WADS possibilities, he indicates, however, certain disadvantages.

“We need to realistic and acknowledge that in terms of mine clearance, there is no panacea for all mine problems. The WADS is having difficulties in detecting plastic mines containing very little metal. However, within humanitarian mine action the use of one method only is not an option. Speaking to the locals is an important part of the work because they of all know where the mines are”, he says.

Other well-known methods to support the WADS are for instance dogs or rats that can be trained to detect even the weakest smell of explosives. In several places around the world, research is being done about so-called artificial bionic noses.

“Applying artificial bionic noses on the WADS vehicle would heighten the accuracy even more without increasing the expenses too much. It is only a question of time before this is possible”, Erik Tollefsen says enthusiastically.

For the time being, DanChurchAid is working towards educating more experts to command the system as well as examining the possibilities of building more vehicles. However, the system is expensive. But in return large road sections can be cleared quicker and cheaper than ever. And a road cleared for landmines opens up for development and trade.

Based on an article by journalist Peter Høvring, published on www.noedhjaelp.dk , 16 January 2006. Translated and edited by Marianne Lemvig.