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It's a reasonably regular thing here in France. It's the sort of thing they'll find anytime there's a new building going up with underground parking beneath it
by docdeek 4y ago
It's a reasonably regular thing here in France. It's the sort of thing they'll find anytime there's a new building going up with underground parking beneath it - the contractor digs, finds a bomb, the army cordons off the quartier for a few hours and sorts it out. Makes the local news but mainly because it either obstructs traffic or is close to a school that needs to shut for the morning.
- dmitriid 4y agoThere are Red Zones in France that are deemed unsuitable for human habitation since WWI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge
- euroderf 4y ago> the contractor digs, finds a bomb What does this mean ? Someone is operating a backhoe and there is a loud KLUNK and the operator looks at what it hit and says to him/herself jeez I'm lucky to still be alive ?
- docdeek 4y agoI guess it is something like that, but don't know for sure. I live in a major urban area so if they find an unexploded bomb it has probably been built over a couple of times since it was originally dropped. The most recent near me (about 800 meters away) was in 2021 and the most interesting thing about it for me was that it was a US bomb, not a German one. http://www.uniindia.com/news/world/people-france-wwii/2337338.html http://www.uniindia.com/news/world/people-france-wwii/233733...
- Someone 4y agoYes. I think it’s more dangerous for farmers, though. They have weaker machinery. Also, in parts of Belgium and France, it’s so common to find stuff that they carry small explosives, including mustard gas grenades from World War One, to the side of the road for later pickup by bomb disposal experts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest)
- samus 4y agoPretty much, although in that case they would indeed be very lucky to not set it off. I guess it is more likely that they find it when they put down the soil they just excavated. I would like to be educated about this, but I feel they should pretty much expect these things and check with a metal detector before excavating the next layer of ground.
- VLM 4y agoI'm sure it happens, sometimes. Most of the time, the lawsuits for digging up someone's fiber optic cable or natgas line are so staggering that there are various "free" one-call services that mark buried objects. The public utilities all pool resources to fund it, so it's free in the sense that your utility bills pay for it. I know a guy who had a gig doing that and in addition to locate devices that are kind of like a giant telco wire toner, they do indeed sometimes walk around with a literal metal detector. Doesn't work very well on terracotta sewer pipe but those generally collapse in a couple decades as I've found out the hard way. Anyway, yeah, a dude with a metal detector walking around with a map of buried pipes in one hand saying "that's odd there's not supposed to be a pipe here"...
- Xylakant 4y agoMost bombs are found by actively surveying the site, often using old aerial photography. But random finds happen and sometimes with deadly consequences. In 2014 a bomb exploded during earth works, the backhoe operator was killed https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/unfall-baggerfahrer-bei-bombenexplosion-getoetet-100.html https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/unfall-baggerfahrer-bei-bombe...
- emmelaich 4y agoFor Belgian / Flemish farmers, yes.