PINGXIANG, July 15 (Xinhua) -- His heart pounded as rivulets of sweat trickled down his face in the semi-desert heat. Wei Lianhai's hands, moist with perspiration, snipped the wire of a landmine laid in the Friendship Pass area, on the border between China and Vietnam.
"Hurrah!" shouted the 30 soldiers of the demining team of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). "Long live peace!"
The landmine Wei cleared on July 5 marked the end of more than 100 days of demining work, making the Friendship Pass zone a mine-free area.
"We've been working so hard to see this day," Wei said.
First constructed in the Ming Dynasty some 600 years ago, the Friendship Pass is situated in Pingxiang City in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
It has always served as a strategic border defense for the southern frontier of China. It was destroyed by the French invasion forces during the Sino-French war in 1885 and destroyed again by the Japanese during the Second World War.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s at least 10,000 landmines were laid within a three-kilometer radius of the Friendship Pass. The destructive devices were left behind since then.
