Tham Piew - Cave with a tragic history

Tham Piew is a cave near Muang Kham, which is locally famous for housing hundreds of local villagers as shelter from bombing during the war years. Four bombs were dropped on the caves in the early 70s, but only the fourth made it inside. All 437 inhabitants were killed in Nov. 1969. No memorial or monument have been erected. Only the blackened walls remain as testimony to the tragedy.
In Phonsavan we'd a talk with a surviver of this American massacre who was lucky to stay outside the cave because he was cooking food for his family which was possible to do only outside due the smoke. He was the only surviver, lost all his family relatives in the cave massacre, now founded a new family and got three kids. He said only this made him able to forget about his cruel memory.