Scorched landscapes across Europe have exposed a potentially lethal threat lurking underground.
Rusted bombs and mines from the First and Second World Wars are now endangering emergency crews responding to wildfires across the continent.
High heat has caused several weapons to explode in France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. In the Dutch province of Limburg, a bomb disposal team was called out to inspect woodland near the site of heavy 1944 combat threatened by flames.
Read more…
Source: Independent
Sign up for the Counter-IED Report Newsletters
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine – Update 175
July 24, 2023
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts have observed directional anti-personnel mines on the periphery of the site of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said today. During a walkdown on 23 July, the IAEA team saw some mines located in a buffer zone between the site’s internal and external perimeter barriers. ...
- Russia’s FSB says traces of explosives found on foreign grain ship
July 24, 2023
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Monday that it had found traces of explosives on a ship travelling from Turkey to the port of Rostov-on-Don in Russia to pick up grain. The FSB said the ship had been docked in the Ukrainian port of Kiliia in May, and that it may have been used to ...
- Italy: Defusing operation of the WWII device in Chivasso has been completed
July 23, 2023
The operation to defuse the Second World War war device that had been found in recent days in via Curie has been successfully completed (and ahead of schedule). The operation concluded around 8 a.m. The intervention, which began at dawn, was completed around 8 am by the EOD officers of the XXXII Regiment of the Engineers ...
- How controversial cluster munitions give Ukraine needed punch during counteroffensive
July 23, 2023
Ukraine has begun using American cluster munitions in the field and is doing so effectively, according to the White House. “They are using them appropriately,” National Security Spokesman John Kirby said on July 21. “They’re using them effectively, and they are actually having an impact on Russia’s defensive formations and Russia’s defensive maneuvering. I think ...
- The Fanta Bomb & Improvised Munitions in Ukraine
July 23, 2023
All sorts of munitions have been dropped from drones ranging from hand grenades to Molotov balloons to mortar rounds and even blocks of explosive. In this article/video, the authors look at a couple of interesting examples of improvised munitions. In early May an interesting short video was shared by a Ukrainian combatant showing a Fanta soft ...
- Ukrainian troops learn bomb disposal skills in Scottish Highlands
July 22, 2023
Ukrainian troops have been on exercises in the Scottish Highlands learning how to disarm and defuse Russian bombs, booby traps and mines. Royal Navy divers and experts have been training their Ukrainian counterparts on finding and neutralising explosive devices in Loch Ewe in Wester Ross. The programme included clearing deep water shipping lanes and rendering beaches ...
- Russia: Four reporters injured in Ukrainian cluster munitions strike
July 22, 2023
Four Izvestiya and RIA Novosti reporters were injured in a Ukrainian cluster munitions strike at the Zaporozhye Region, the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday, adding that RIA Novosti reporter Rostislav Zhuravlyov died during evacuation. “At about 12:00 on July 22, 2023, Ukrainian forces carried out an artillery strike at a group of Izvestia and RIA Novosti ...
- Ukraine is now the most mined country. It will take decades to make safe
July 22, 2023
In a year and a half of conflict, land mines — along with unexploded bombs, artillery shells and other deadly byproducts of war — have contaminated a swath of Ukraine roughly the size of Florida or Uruguay. It has become the world’s most mined country. The transformation of Ukraine’s heartland into patches of wasteland riddled with ...
- IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine – Update 174
July 20, 2023
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts have carried out additional inspections and walkdowns at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) over the past week – so far without observing any heavy military equipment, explosives or mines – but they are still awaiting access to the rooftops of the reactor buildings, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi ...
- Mine-clearing equipment given to Ukraine is ineffective, noisy, and easy to strike
July 19, 2023
Mine-clearing equipment given to Ukrainian forces by the West is “ineffective” because it is noisy, large, and easy to strike, according to a commander speaking The Washington Post. Officers told the publication that the Ukrainian military had encountered minefields between three and ten miles deep, laid with anti-tank and tripwired anti-personnel mines, in their counteroffensive to ...
- Two dead after explosions on Kerch Bridge linking Crimea and Russia
July 17, 2023
Twin explosions have damaged the Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea to mainland Russia, killing two people and closing the main conduit for Russian road traffic to the annexed peninsula. The heavily guarded road and rail link is among the Kremlin’s most important and high-prestige infrastructure projects, and the only overland link that goes directly from Russia to ...
- Malta: When St John’s Co-Cathedral was threatened by 2,000lb bomb in 1955, and the man who led its defusing
July 17, 2023
It is a known piece of historical trivia that for a time during the Second World War, Malta was the most bombed place on the planet. That’s evidenced by the fact that right up to this very day, bombs from back then continue to be unearthed. But no bomb dropped during the war came bigger than ...
- South Korea to supply Ukraine with more mine detectors, demining equipment
July 16, 2023
South Korea will supply Ukraine with more mine detectors and demining equipment as part of its assistance package for the war-torn nation, a presidential official said Sunday. The initiative is made up of nine pillars — three for each type of assistance — including the supply of additional safety equipment, according to Principal Deputy National Security ...
- Ukraine: The biggest obstacle to the counteroffensive? Minefields.
July 15, 2023
In a painstakingly slow process that has come to define the speed of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, small groups of sappers on the front lines are crawling across minefields — sometimes literally on their stomachs — to detonate Russia’s defenses and clear a path for troops to advance. The long buildup to the counteroffensive, which began about ...
- Russia: Explosive device linked to car bombing in Belgorod, investigative authorities say
July 14, 2023
An incident on Friday involving the explosion of a car in the Russian city of Belgorod, which left three people injured, was caused by an unidentified explosive device, the Russian Investigative Committee in the Belgorod Region said in a statement. “According to preliminary information, an unidentified explosive device detonated in a car moving through the courtyard ...