(21 Apr 2002)

1. Bagram air base
2. Transport plane flying overhead
3. Norwegian deminers on runway
4. Machine churning up ground
5. Norwegian deminers watching
6. Norwegian deminers on runway
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Private Joer Opdahl, Norwegian Sapper
"First of all you have the heat. It's very hot working, the surface is very hard to work on because it's been a drought here for several years, and even though it has rained for the last few weeks, it's still very hard to work in the earth, to prod, and it's almost impossible to use a mine detector because of all the shrapnel in the ground."
8. Norwegian deminers strapping explosives to mines
9. Mine blowing up
10. Smoke rising over old Soviet MiG fighter
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Private Joer Opdahl, Norwegian Sapper
"So you have English, Americans, Polish as well working with us, but I don't know their numbers, but we are 16 of us at Bagram airfield for Norwegians and we have cleared between 500 and 600 mines and 3,000 UXOs (unexploded ordnance)."
12. Mine exploding, smoke rising
13. Minefield outside Bagram air base

STORYLINE:

Norwegian deminers are busy trying to secure stretches of land around Bagram air base in Afghanistan, which is one of the world's most heavily mined areas.

While coalition forces face daily dangers from al-Qaida forces still at large in the country, a silent killer continues to lurk just below the surface of Afghanistan's parched earth - millions of landmines.

The largest concentration of mines is in areas of the heaviest fighting between Taliban and Northern Alliance forces, including the dusty flatlands around Kabul and Bagram.

Bagram air base just north of Kabul is one the most heavily mined areas in the world.

Non-governmental organisations are doing much of the de-mining.

The Norwegian team of deminers are considered to be among the best there are.

On Saturday, the Norwegian team was clearing a patch at the end of the runway at Bagram.

It takes hours to comb an area about 50 by 200 metres (yards).

There are 16 Norwegian deminers in Bagram working alongside coalition forces.

The teams make a visual sweep for mines near the surface before sending in an armoured vehicle with a spinning drum that flails chains to detonate them.

Metal detectors are often useless because of the tons of scrap from war debris, leaving men in protective suits to gingerly discover and unearth the mines for later destruction.

The team takes extra precautions, but it's a dangerous job.

A Norwegian soldier suffered severe injuries this month when a mine exploded near him.

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