Hi everyone, this is part two of our two-part series, The Belt and the Burm.

Part one was about The Belt, the world's longest conveyor belt found in northwest Africa

and about the phosphate that it conveys.

If you haven't listened to part one, you might want to pause, go back, and listen.

Otherwise, let's jump into part two, The Burm.

It's strange that so many people know about the Berlin Wall, but so few seem to know

about the Burm in Western Sahara.

The Berlin Wall was about 90 miles long.

The Burm runs for nearly 1,700 miles.

That's about the distance from New York City to Austin, Texas.

But in a lot of ways, the two barriers are similar.

Just like the Berlin Wall, the Burm divides a once-united people.

Unlike the wall, the Burm can be deadly for those who dare to get too close.

In the last episode, we talked a lot about mining, as in digging up resources.

But here, we're talking about land mines, explosives.

There's an estimated 7 million landmines running in and along the Burm.

Yeah, the Burm is today, you know, could be argued one of the world's largest currently

functioning military infrastructures.

It's just stuffed full of mines.

I'm Dylan Thurus, and this is Atlas Obscura.

This is part two of our two-parter, The Belt and the Burm.

It's the story of how the world's longest conveyor belt led to the creation of the world's

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