The head of the Organisation of American States, Cesar Gaviria, says the flooding and mudslides caused by Hurricane Mitch could put back efforts to clear Nicaragua of landmines by several years.

The OAS secretary-general, who's visiting Managua, said that many of the estimated seventy-thousand anti-personnel mines in Nicaragua were dislodged by the storm.

As a result, an international effort to clear the mines by the year 2000 could be set back by six to eight years.

Tens of thousands of mines laid in the 1980s during Nicaragua's civil war are still active.