This is the dramatic moment an unexploded American bomb from the Vietnam War was detonated.

Shocked villagers found the 750lb cluster bomb device in the remote Vilabuly village in Savannakhet, southern Laos on March 15.

The bomb is among the 270 million that were dropped by U.S. forces on the country between 1964 and 1973. Shockingly, up to a third of the bombs did not explode and just one per cent of the explosives these have been discovered and destroyed.

Laos military offices arrived at the scene and transferred the explosive to a bunker surrounded by sandbags before planning how to carry out a controlled explosion.

Footage shows the unexploded ordnance behind the sandbag bunker was blasted, following by the loud boom and the heavy smoke.

The bomb disposal said that the explosive was a which was very powerful. The safest way to demolish it was to cover them up in the sand inside the sandbag bunker.

They said in a statement: ‘’We used about 150,000 sandbags and spent a week to carefully build the cover so that the explosion would not damage any civilians, houses, and plants.’’

The U.S. Air Force dropped more than two million tons of explosives on Laos during 580,000 bombing missions during the Vietnam War, making Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in history. It is equal to a planeload of bombs being dropped every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years - far more than all the bombs dropped across Europe throughout World War II.

In 2008 there were 310 deaths caused by unexploded bombs and landmines. It is now around 50 per year.