Army team save Afghan Buddha

New Zealand Army explosive experts have saved a 2000-year-old Buddha by destroying a 500kg bomb found at the base of the statue in Afghanistan.

The Army's provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) bomb experts were called in when workers found the large incendiary bomb at the foot of the 53-metre high statue in the Bamiyan province.

The statue was believed to have been carved into the mountains in the sixth to seventh centuries but survived a Taleban attack that destroyed many other statues.

The workers who found the bomb were part of an international team working on the restoration of two famous Buddhas destroyed by the Taleban. Edmund Melzl, a spokesman for the International Council on Monuments and Sites, said the workers first thought the bomb was a piece of tin.

In the latest issue of the Army News, he said as soon as they learned it was more than a harmless piece of tin, the NZ Army was called in.

Air Force armourer Jim Johns said the bomb's history was not known but it might have been dropped when the Russians were fighting the Mujahadeen, failing to go off.

"Then when the Taleban came in and were blowing up the Buddhas, it was probably placed alongside other ordnance, failed to go off and was buried under the rubble."

The bomb was pulled out from the base of the statue using a block and tackle and was destroyed in a controlled explosion.

Mr Melzl said: "I am so happy with what has happened here.

"Thanks to the PRT, we can resume our work and no damage has been done to the Buddha which was our biggest fear."

The bomb is one of the biggest destroyed by the PRT team in Afghanistan.

- NZPA