A 37-year-old man was badly injured on Sunday when he ran over a decades-old anti-tank mine with a tiller in Banteay Meanchey province’s Thma Puok district, police said yesterday.

Victim Sin Va, a resident of Thma Puok’s Kouk Romeit commune, received injuries from shrapnel all over his body, including a broken thigh, and wounds that necessitated the amputation of his left hand, said deputy commune police chief Nith Meath.

Va was sent to hospital in Battambang by the demining organisation Halo Trust, he added.

“As of [yesterday] morning, the victim was still not yet conscious due to his operation,” he said.

According to Ouch Khoeun, a relative of Va, after several consecutive rains, Va and other farmers in Kouk Romiet commune had gone out to plough the land and sow crops.

When Va was ploughing, however, his tiller struck the mine – believed to be from the 1980s – and the detonation injured him and totally destroyed the machine.

In mid-May, a travelling salesman lost a leg to an unexploded mine in Kouk Romiet, when he went to forage for food.