Hanoi  - Two Vietnamese men were killed and another seriously injured when an artillery shell believed to be left over from the Vietnam War exploded in the country's Central Highlands, local media said Friday.

The three scrap metal dealers were sawing a 105-millimetre shell to remove its explosives and steel Thursday at a house in Kien Thanh Village in Dak Nong province, 250 kilometers north of Ho Chi Minh City, when the shell exploded, the newspaper Phap Luat Ho Chi Minh City reported.

Harvesting leftover wartime materiel, including unexploded ordnance, to sell as scrap metal remains a common cottage industry in poor areas of Vietnam.

In February, a similar accident killed a man and his wife who were also scrap metal dealers and injured their daughter at their house in Dong Nai province, 60 kilometers north of Ho Chi Minh City.

During the war, US warplanes dropped about 15 million tons of bombs on Vietnam. The bulk of the unexploded ordnance remains in the central and southern regions of the country, particularly around the demilitarized zone that divided North and South Vietnam until the end of the war in 1975.

Dozens of Vietnamese are killed every year by bombs, mines and grenades. (dpa)