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Hundreds of tonnes of unexploded ordnance from the First World War are collected every year in Belgium and Northern France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_

Hundreds of tonnes of unexploded ordnance from the First World War are collected every year in Belgium and Northern France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest

julienchastang 2y ago
> Since 1946, approximately 630 French ordnance disposal workers have died handling unexploded munitions. Incredible.
- kibwen 2y ago
  It would be interesting to see a graph over time, because presumably the vast majority of those happened in the immediate years following the war. That Wikipedia link mentions two deaths in 2014, which may be the most recent fatalities.
- svieira 2y ago
  I can recommend a lovely short video in French documenting the work that I recently watched: Meet the team still cleaning up after World War I | Zone Rouge (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB-Ncob1gDk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB-Ncob1gDk)
- tetha 2y ago
  I still have some german documentary about a man defusing these things burned into my head. He was asked why he wasn't wearing any safety equipment while working on these large bombs. Well for smaller amounts of explosive chemicals, they'd wear the blast suit, because it could save them and might keep them a bit presentable otherwise. That'd be nice for the family. If the bomb is several times heavier than you are though, they'd just do the job right and go home after - and no one needs safety equipment on a job done right.
  - xenadu02 2y ago
    More specifically such large bombs will kill you with the pressure wave if nothing else. They are not survivable. Either you diffuse them successfully or you die.
  - Xylakant 2y ago
    The way they figured out how to defuse the bombs was pretty rough, too. The person that did the defusal would call out what they were about to do next to a person taking notes at a safe distance. If the bomb exploded, they knew not to do that again.
rwmj 2y ago
Here's one in Oxfordshire 4 days ago, although I'm a little confused how a First World War bomb got all the way there. Dropped from a Zeppelin? (It's also sadly possible that the news reporter got the wrong war.) https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2024-09-28/bomb-disposal-team-explode-ww1-shell-in-banbury https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2024-09-28/bomb-disposal-t...
- robin_reala 2y ago
  Probably. The village I lived in wasn’t as far over as Oxfordshire, but had a zeppelin raid: https://guildford-dragon.com/terror-zeppelin-raid-on-guildford-was-100-years-ago-tonight/ https://guildford-dragon.com/terror-zeppelin-raid-on-guildfo...

julienchastang 2y ago

> Since 1946, approximately 630 French ordnance disposal workers have died handling unexploded munitions. Incredible.

kibwen 2y ago
It would be interesting to see a graph over time, because presumably the vast majority of those happened in the immediate years following the war. That Wikipedia link mentions two deaths in 2014, which may be the most recent fatalities.
svieira 2y ago
I can recommend a lovely short video in French documenting the work that I recently watched: Meet the team still cleaning up after World War I | Zone Rouge (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB-Ncob1gDk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB-Ncob1gDk)
tetha 2y ago
I still have some german documentary about a man defusing these things burned into my head. He was asked why he wasn't wearing any safety equipment while working on these large bombs. Well for smaller amounts of explosive chemicals, they'd wear the blast suit, because it could save them and might keep them a bit presentable otherwise. That'd be nice for the family. If the bomb is several times heavier than you are though, they'd just do the job right and go home after - and no one needs safety equipment on a job done right.
- xenadu02 2y ago
  More specifically such large bombs will kill you with the pressure wave if nothing else. They are not survivable. Either you diffuse them successfully or you die.
- Xylakant 2y ago
  The way they figured out how to defuse the bombs was pretty rough, too. The person that did the defusal would call out what they were about to do next to a person taking notes at a safe distance. If the bomb exploded, they knew not to do that again.

rwmj 2y ago

Here's one in Oxfordshire 4 days ago, although I'm a little confused how a First World War bomb got all the way there. Dropped from a Zeppelin? (It's also sadly possible that the news reporter got the wrong war.) https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2024-09-28/bomb-disposal-team-explode-ww1-shell-in-banbury https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2024-09-28/bomb-disposal-t...

robin_reala 2y ago
Probably. The village I lived in wasn’t as far over as Oxfordshire, but had a zeppelin raid: https://guildford-dragon.com/terror-zeppelin-raid-on-guildford-was-100-years-ago-tonight/ https://guildford-dragon.com/terror-zeppelin-raid-on-guildfo...