Vietnam War: What 80 Million Unexploded Bombs Did To Laos

For two years after the accident, Yei Yang refused to leave his home.

In his words "I couldn't farm, I couldn't go to see friends, as they might be afraid of me.

"I didn't want to live."

Yang was just 22 and burning rubbish near his village in the province of Xieng Khoung in north-eastern Laos, when a bomb blast tore off one of his eyelids, his top lip and an ear, mutilated one of

his arms, and left him with severe scarring from the waist up.

His wounds were not caused by a modern day conflict but by a remnant of a war that was waged over 40 years ago and is still destroying lives in the small south eastern Asian nation.

Some 80 million unexploded bombs are scattered across the country -- the deadly legacy of what became known as America's "secret war" in Laos -- a CIA-led mission during the Vietnam War.