In August 2015, a family in Great Britain discovered what they thought was a large buoy
on the beach.
It turned out to be an unexploded mine left over from World War Two.
As potentially dangerous as this is, finding old bombs in the UK is a relatively common
occurrence.
After many years of war, Britons are still running into explosives of all sorts, overlooked
for the past 70 years.
So, Why are there still so many bombs in the United Kingdom?
Over the course of World War Two, Nazi Germany dropped thousands of tons of high explosives
on Great Britain.
During the Blitz, which was a period of intense bombing lasting 57 days, the Germans dropped
nearly 20,000 tons of explosives on London alone.
Naturally, not every single bomb went off, and some are still laying around undiscovered.
Unexploded bombs are most regularly found by construction workers when building new
homes.
When the explosives are found while digging into an old building foundation, all work
must stop, and the police are called.
Another bomb in east London, found the same week as the beach mine, called for a mandatory
evacuation of surrounding homes.
Army bomb disposal units came and removed the device in order to detonate it remotely,
away from any people.
Unfortunately despite these precautions, bombs still do go off occasionally.
The issue of discovering unexploded devices is so common that in 2009, a British Construction
Association released a guide for construction workers, on what to do if a bomb is found.
The report says that from 2006 to 2008, roughly 15,000 items were discovered during construction.
This included everything from “German bombs to smaller items such as mortar rounds and
grenades," of which about 5% were live.
Of course, the UK is far from the only place with large amounts of unexploded ordnance,
or UXO.
Germany suffers from the same issue due to Allied bombing campaigns during world war
two.
However, the worst UXO are landmines.
In countries like Egypt and Cambodia, leftover landmines pose a massive problem for local
populations, as a majority of mines are designed to last indefinitely.
From 1999 to 2008, nearly 75,000 casualties were recorded due to unexploded ordnance around
the world.
Laos alone sees 4 deaths a week from landmines left over from the Vietnam War.
Although war is often justified as necessary in the moment, few countries consider the
long-term effects.
Despite efforts to clear the world of dangerous weapons in peaceful countries, the damage
has often already been done.
Even places like Great Britain, that have moved past the bloody remnants of world war
two, are still dealing with the side effects decades later.
There’s one unexpected deadly weapon that has won every major world war, and it’s
not a bomb or a gun.
It’s weather.
To hear more about how weather can stir up trouble during wars, check out this video
on TestTube Plus.
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