Nearly 1,800 AK-47 rounds – thought to be left over from the late 1970s – were found over the weekend in Battambang and Prey Veng provinces, local authorities said yesterday.

Long Sambath, chief of police Battambang’s Svay Chek commune, said yesterday that the owner of an excavator had brought two boxes of ammunition, both containing about 750 rounds, to police after unearthing them on Friday.

“The excavator was digging up some ground . . . and when it dumped the soil into the truck they were loading, they saw the two boxes drop down along with the soil,” he said. “They wondered what the boxes were, and then they opened them to find they were full of AK bullets”.

Sambath called on locals to report to police or the Cambodian Mine Action Centre if they spot any more bullets in the area.

Meanwhile, a police official in Prey Veng’s Peam Chor district said they had also received a box containing about 250 AK bullets from a local farmer.

“They are old, but if we used a heavy thing to drop on it or beat it, it would explode,” said the official, who declined to give his name.