This year is the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, but in some countries, the trail of death and destruction continues.
Bombs, nearly a century old, are still exploding, killing and maiming people and contaminating land. Four years ago, a group of young people gathered for a barbecue in a residential backyard. They were cooking food over an open fire in the ground. Suddenly, the earth exploded with no warning. Maeverlyn Pitanoe, a youth mentor, and two young men were standing near to where the ageing bomb had been buried in the garden.
Read more…
Source: Independent Australia News
Sign up for the Counter-IED Report Newsletters
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Philippines: Army slams NPAs for stockpiling IEDs near Butuan community
September 14, 2025
The Philippine Army’s 48th Infantry Battalion (48IB) denounced the communist New People’s Army (NPA) for endangering residents by stockpiling improvised explosive devices (IEDs) close to a community in Butuan City. The 48IB troopers recovered the explosives in Purok 6, Barangay Bugsukan on Sept. 11, following the disclosure of an NPA member who recently surrendered. Recovered at ...
- New Zealand: Huntly man built pipe bomb to scare off ‘undesirable’ neighbours
September 6, 2025
After having his belongings stolen, and the windows of his car and Kāinga Ora home smashed, Warren John Frederick Lee had had enough. The 76-year-old former quarry worker decided to make a pipe bomb, with enough ammonia to damage everything in a 1km radius of his Huntly home. The bomb then lay idle in his livingroom. ...
- Deadly threat of unexploded bombs in the Pacific persists 80 years on
September 6, 2025
This year is the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, but in some countries, the trail of death and destruction continues. Bombs, nearly a century old, are still exploding, killing and maiming people and contaminating land. Four years ago, a group of young people gathered for a barbecue in a residential backyard. ...
- U.S., Australia Conduct Joint Chemical, Biological Exercise
August 29, 2025
Marines assigned to Marine Wing Support Squadron 174, Marine Aircraft Group 24, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, joined forces with the Air Force, Air Force Reserves, Air National Guard and Royal Australian Air Force for Exercise Toxic Swell 25. The two-week training event on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, focused on enhancing chemical, biological, radiological and ...
- AFP bomb squad crafts IEDs to stay ahead of bad guys
August 24, 2025
Inside an electronics workshop in Australia’s capital territory there is a team of tech experts building bombs from scratch. They’re not terrorists; rather, a team of elite specialists making improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and then blowing them up. The mission is to get ahead of the bad guys. “The devices are constructed from the same materials, ...
- Hawaii: Maui police call in bomb squad to assess ordnance found off Pūlehu Road
July 31, 2025
The Maui Police Department called in the Hawaiʻi Inter-Island Bomb Squad to assess reports of possible military ordnance found off of Pūlehu Road, Wednesday afternoon. The device was found on July 30, 2025, about a quarter mile mauka of the Central Maui Landfill. The reporting party indicated that the item, identified as a “bomb shell,” appeared ...
- Singapore: Fewer than 1 in 5 people noticed suspicious items during Ministry of Home Affairs’s social experiments
July 30, 2025
More than 2,500 people in Tampines and Bishan walked past a black suitcase and a black car with a concealed number plate, but fewer than 500 of them noticed the suspicious objects. Even fewer of them either intended to or actually did alert the authorities to the items – just 26. Over a few hours during ...
- Japanese WWII destroyer torpedoed by U.S. boats discovered on Pacific seafloor – still armed with munitions
July 15, 2025
A famed Japanese destroyer sunk by U.S. torpedoes during a pivotal battle in World War II has been discovered on the floor of the Pacific Ocean more than 80 years after it sank, an exploration team has revealed. The warship was found still armed with unused depth charges, according to the explorers. The Imperial Japanese Navy ...
- New Zealand: Divers disable WWII mines in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf
June 26, 2025
The navy has neutralised a set of World War II-era mines found on the seafloor in the Hauraki Gulf near Auckand. According to the New Zealand Defence Force, the mines were laid during the early parts of the war to protect Waitematā Harbour and the Hauraki Gulf from threats posed by the Japanese and German navies. “It ...
- NZDF targets unexploded ordnance in Papua New Guinea
June 24, 2025
The Kiwis joined personnel from Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Papua New Guinea, the United States and United Kingdom for Operation Render Safe, an operation that has been targeting explosive remnants of war (ERW) left throughout the Pacific after the Second World War for over 20 years. More than 25,000 people have been injured or killed in ...
- ADF: Partnership safeguards Pacific communities
June 24, 2025
Australian Army engineers are providing explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) training to the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF) to help them safely manage unexploded ordnance. The Solomon Islands, a key battleground during the Pacific campaign of World War 2, remains littered with unexploded ordnance (UXO), including bombs, artillery shells, ammunition and old torpedoes. The International Mine ...
- Solomon Islands: NUXO team ends evaluation tour in Western and Choiseul
June 8, 2025
A team from the National Unexploded Ordnance (NUXO) Coordinating Office has successfully conducted a week-long evaluation and inspection tour across Western and Choiseul Provinces. According to Mr. Benzily Kasutaba, Director of the UXO Division under the Ministry of Police, National Security and Correctional Services, the purpose of the tour was to strengthen provincial commitment to addressing ...
- New Zealand’s efforts bomb clearing in Laos
May 21, 2025
Southeast Asia’s Laos is the most heavily bombed country per capita – 80 million unexploded bombs (UXO) are scattered across the country. New Zealand has spent the last two decades helping to clear these hidden dangers. Writer Samantha Mythen has more. I sat in the make-shift movie theatre, chairs haphazardly organised across the floor. The French, ...
- Joint Australian Training Team – Philippines: Sappers get a blast out of shared training
April 28, 2025
Under the beating sun in Tarlac City in the Philippines, Australian explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) specialists recently exchanged experience and techniques with their Filipino counterparts. In late February and early March, an eight-person mobile training team (MTT) from Australia delivered training focused on counter-improvised explosive device (C-IED) skills. The MTT comprised members of the Australian Army’s ...
- Japan: Okinawa construction unearths more US shells 80 years after WWII battle
April 10, 2025
Japanese troops recently removed and neutralized three World War II-era U.S. artillery shells uncovered at construction sites across southern Okinawa and detonated another offshore, according to local officials. The discoveries, made over the past two months, highlight the lingering danger of unexploded ordnance from the Battle of Okinawa, fought 80 years ago on the island. Two ...