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there's a lot of it about. We sometimes hear sea mines being blown up the Royal Navy, or hear about them being caught in fisherman's nets. Must be way worse in

there's a lot of it about. We sometimes hear sea mines being blown up the Royal Navy, or hear about them being caught in fisherman's nets. Must be way worse in Germany.

docdeek 9y ago
Reasonably regular occurance in France, too.
- k33l0r 9y ago
  According to Wikipedia “the French Département du Déminage (Department of Mine Clearance) recovers about 900 tons of unexploded munitions every year” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest
  - paulmd 9y ago
    And, in the most heavily-impacted areas such as Verdun, they estimate that it will take not less than 700 years to clear the areas, at the present rate.
philjohn 9y ago
Not only that, but they're still finding chemical munitions from WW1 around europe. There was a documentary on the BBC last year called "Inside Porton Down" where they showed the lengths they have to go to disarming and destroying these compounds. Despite being 100 years old they still maintain their potency and could kill or maim easily if handled incorrectly.
toyg 9y ago
Very common in Italy. My hometown has always been a critical railway node, so it was heavily bombed by USAF; any time they start building on unused land, they inevitably find some unexploded ordinance. It's super-weird when they just take down a building, re-dig the site, and lo, they find stuff underneath that could have exploded at any time in the last 75 years killing hundreds...
Steve44 9y ago
There was a minefield laid between Scotland and Norway in WW1 and then a similar one laid in WW2. There are potentially over 100,000 devices still out there from what I remember reading. We also dumped an awful lot of nasty stuff in Beaufort's Dyke, a trench in the Irish Sea. Another reply mentioned the Porton Down TV documentary, that is well worth watching.
brazzy 9y ago
Germany here: there's news about parts of some city or other being temporarily evacuated every couple of months. Usually the bomb is defused without incident. Here's one example where they had to do a controlled detonation on site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NbM2Xbc1uk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NbM2Xbc1uk - not so controlled after all, since the straw bales they used to dampen the shockwave cased several fires.
dx034 9y ago
Most of the North Sea and Baltic Sea are have been cleared but some areas remain full of mines. And there's no real desire to clean those up if it's in areas shipping/fishing doesn't use. Makes it harder for other nations to hide submarines in case of a future conflict.

there's a lot of it about. We sometimes hear sea mines being blown up the Royal Navy, or hear about them being caught in fisherman's nets. Must be way worse in Germany.

docdeek 9y ago

Reasonably regular occurance in France, too.

k33l0r 9y ago
According to Wikipedia “the French Département du Déminage (Department of Mine Clearance) recovers about 900 tons of unexploded munitions every year” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest
- paulmd 9y ago
  And, in the most heavily-impacted areas such as Verdun, they estimate that it will take not less than 700 years to clear the areas, at the present rate.

philjohn 9y ago

Not only that, but they're still finding chemical munitions from WW1 around europe. There was a documentary on the BBC last year called "Inside Porton Down" where they showed the lengths they have to go to disarming and destroying these compounds. Despite being 100 years old they still maintain their potency and could kill or maim easily if handled incorrectly.

toyg 9y ago

Very common in Italy. My hometown has always been a critical railway node, so it was heavily bombed by USAF; any time they start building on unused land, they inevitably find some unexploded ordinance. It's super-weird when they just take down a building, re-dig the site, and lo, they find stuff underneath that could have exploded at any time in the last 75 years killing hundreds...

Steve44 9y ago

There was a minefield laid between Scotland and Norway in WW1 and then a similar one laid in WW2. There are potentially over 100,000 devices still out there from what I remember reading. We also dumped an awful lot of nasty stuff in Beaufort's Dyke, a trench in the Irish Sea. Another reply mentioned the Porton Down TV documentary, that is well worth watching.

brazzy 9y ago

Germany here: there's news about parts of some city or other being temporarily evacuated every couple of months. Usually the bomb is defused without incident. Here's one example where they had to do a controlled detonation on site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NbM2Xbc1uk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NbM2Xbc1uk - not so controlled after all, since the straw bales they used to dampen the shockwave cased several fires.

dx034 9y ago

Most of the North Sea and Baltic Sea are have been cleared but some areas remain full of mines. And there's no real desire to clean those up if it's in areas shipping/fishing doesn't use. Makes it harder for other nations to hide submarines in case of a future conflict.