The new machine, which also features a mine detector, has a pivot with 42 chains attached. Each chain ends in a 2kg steel cube. Once the pivot rolls, the chains and the cubes flail the ground, blowing up anti-tank mines.
The company is to ship the new machine to Afghanistan at the end of this month and Amemiya is scheduled to visit the country in June to instruct Afghan mine clearers in using it.
An estimated 5 million to 7 million mines are scattered throughout Afghanistan, according to the UN -- while an estimated 110 million landmines are strewn in more than 70 countries, killing and maiming 20,000 each year.
Amemiya said his next goal was to create a machine that clears unexploded ordnance.
"Clearing unexploded ordnance is extremely difficult and dangerous for local mine clearers. But I'm already working on it and I am tenacious. I will not give up on clearing landmines from the world," he said.
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