Handlers train rats to sniff out land mines

Pit, only 2 years old and with one eye, needed just 11 minutes to locate a deadly mine buried in a Cambodian field, a task that humans with metal detectors could have taken up to five days to complete.

Pit is part of a team of elite rats imported from Africa that Cambodia is training to sniff out land mines that still dot the countryside after decades of conflict.

"Under a clear sky, he would have been quicker," said Hul Sokheng, a veteran Cambodian mine clearer who oversees the training of 12 handlers. They are being taught to work with 15 Gambian pouched rats to clear Cambodia's farmland and rural villages of explosives.