SINGAPORE, Nov 26: A combat boot to curb injuries from landmines is attracting the interest of many countries, including the United States, a newspaper reported Monday.

The British Royal Military College of Science tested the boot with anti-personnel landmines containing up to 70 grammes of high explosives and the blasts did not penetrate the sole of the boot, The Straits Times said.

BfR Holdings Ltd., which is manufacturing and marketing the boot, said samples have been sold to a dozen countries including Spain, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Conventional “anti-mine” boots are intended for engineers clearing mines and are too unwieldy for combat use, a company spokesman said. But the footwear designed by Singaporean Andrew Vaz, called a “blast- and fragment-resistant boot”, is geared for the soldier, looking and weighing the same as a combat boot, he said.

The sole is vastly different, with a thin plate of corrugated stainless steel making up the front half and an aluminium plate with a plug of steel in the heel making up the rest.

The innovations are aimed at deflecting a blast as well as fragments and heat away from the foot if the person wearing the boot steps on a mine, the spokesmen said.

Under the metal sole are 30 layers of a fabric similar to that used in bullet-resistant vests. Several layers also line the boot’s uppers.

Vaz, who used to work for Singapore’s Ministry of Defence, told The Straits Times that he was on a trip to Cambodia in the 1990s when he saw horrific injuries caused by landmines. “It made me want to design something to protect against landmines,” Vaz, 45, was quoted as saying.

BfR Holdings bought the rights to manufacture the boot from Vaz.—dpa