WMD Found in Iraq, However...

[A.Saturnus]

What a scoop!!! In France we probably recover more than that from the WW1 battle field every year…

Good point. This may actually mean that Belgium has still some WMDs. Buried in Flanders Fields...

[Aenlic]

Thread hijacking alert!

One of you guys in the part of the world help me out here. I read somewhere and can't find the source again, that in places like Ardennes and the Somme, farmers still die every year plowing over old but still active WWI munitions. Is it still that dangerous in such places? Do multiple people die every year?

[Louis VI the Fat]

I read somewhere and can't find the source again, that in places like Ardennes and the Somme, farmers still die every year plowing over old but still active WWI munitions. Is it still that dangerous in such places? Do multiple people die every year?

Yes, that's true. Farmers, clean-up teams and WWI souvernir-hunters still die from it. You can't plow a field in the north without stumbling on some WWI ammunition. Farmers call it the 'Iron Harvest'.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It has been estimated that, for every square metre of territory on the front from the coast to the Swiss border, a tonne of explosives fell. One shell in every four (some sources say one in every three) did not detonate.

Given the swamp-like conditions of trench warfare in the period, the unexploded weapons - in the form of shells, bullets and grenades - were quickly swallowed in the mud. As time passes, construction work, field ploughing and natural processes bring the rusting shells to the surface. Most of the iron harvest is found during the spring planting and fall plowing.


Iron harvest WWI ordnance left in a telegraph pole for disposal by the army in 2004 near Ieper in Belgium.Despite the condition of the shells, they remain very dangerous. The French Département du Déminage recover about 900 tons of unexploded munitions every year. Since 1945, approximately 630 French démineurs have died handling unexploded munitions. Two died handling munitions outside of Vimy, France as recently as 1998.

The rusting of the shells also pollutes the land and the water table - the land around the Ypres Salient and the Somme being intensively farmed whilst having excess iron (the metal from shells) in the soil, trees and vegetation almost 90 years later. There have been reports of gas seeping from buried caches underneath war cemeteries, requiring the closure and evacuation of the surrounding area (especially mills, where the oil used to lubricate the grinders was especially vulnerable to the gas. This gas often caused the oil to turn into what the workers called "Iron Grüdgdèl", which referred to its yellow color).


Disposal
In Belgium, iron harvest discovered by farmers is carefully placed around field edges, or in gaps in telegraph poles, where it is regularly collected by the Belgian army for disposal by controlled explosion at a specialist centre near Poelkapelle.


Some are still found nowadays, for instance by farmers ploughing their fields and are called the iron harvest. Some of this ammunition contains chemical toxic products such as mustard gas. Cleanup of major battlefields is a continuing task with no end in sight for decades more. Squads remove, defuse or destroy hundreds of tons of unexploded ammunition every year in Belgium and France.

One estimate is that at the current rate, France will not be cleared of unexploded First-World-War shells for several hundred years.

Edit: well it's not as dangerous as it sounds, in case you ever want to visit WWI sites. Just don't be an idiot. There are plenty of stories about souvenir hunters going in with metal detectors and spades...

[Aenlic]

Yeah, I see the point. Well digging with spades in the Ardennes is just plain stupid. As I recall, that was one of the largest artillery duels in history.

I feel sorry for the farmers though. There really isn't much they can do to avoid it, having to plow their fields. Something could be very deeply buried; but over time the heating and cooling of the soil pushes things up, especially in areas where temperatures can get below freezing. That's how it works in archaeology, so I imagine it works that way with munitions as well.

Thanks for the info, Louis!

[Brenus]

“This may actually mean that Belgium has still some WMDs”: And Belgium is part of the axe of Evil, along side France and Germany. Should start to pack guy, you’re next on the list….