a conventional fireworks-based device fashioned into a blowtorch may soon end up saving thousands of lives apart form the huge amounts of money spent in destroying landmines each year. This simple, safe and relatively-inexpensive device, designed by British defence researchers, simply burns up a landmine to ashes without actually having to explode it.

FireAnt, as its developers call it, directs a tongue of flame to the landmine from a distance of a couple of centimetres away. It burns a hole into the casting, igniting the detonator even before it can set the mine off. The explosion is thus prevented and the high explosives are simply burned off.

Calling it "an upgraded Roman candle', Paul Reip