MAG Visitor Centre

The Mines Advisory Group's visitor centre on the main street of Phonsavan is small, free, and easily the most important museum in the region. A series of panels and short documentaries explains the secret war that the US Air Force prosecuted against Laos between 1964 and 1973 — the heaviest bombing campaign in human history per square kilometre — and the slow work of clearing the unexploded ordnance that still kills and maims Lao people every year.

Survivors and de-miners speak in the videos. Defused cluster bomblets, white phosphorus shells, and the heavy metal detectors used by clearance teams are on display. Visit before going to the jar sites and the broader context of those white-and-red marker stones makes sense.

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A story
Between 1964 and 1973 the United States dropped more bombs on Laos than were dropped on Germany and Japan combined in the Second World War. Roughly a third of them failed to explode, and the Xieng Khouang plateau — directly under the Ho Chi Minh Trail — caught the worst of it. The clearance teams reckon the work has another 50 to 100 years to run at the current pace.