WWI armament kills 2 workers in Flanders Fields

[The Straight Story]

YPRES, Belgium (AP) — An armament from World War I has exploded at an industrial site in the former Flanders battlegrounds, killing two construction workers and injuring two more.

Johan Lescrauwaert of the Ypres prosecutor's office said a shell or grenade from the 1914-1918 war exploded near the workers. The circumstances were unclear because there was apparently no digging at the site, the usual cause of such accidents, he told VRT network.

Every year the battlefields in western Belgium throw up hundreds of armaments from the Great War, and most are destroyed without incident by a special Belgian army bomb squad. In a nearby city, the army was completing the destruction of over 800 gas canisters.


http://bigstory.ap.org/article/wwi-armament-kills-2-workers-flanders-fields

[justabob]

1. I wonder

I wonder how long those remnants will keep coming up? How long until they've disintegrated to the point they will no longer explode? WWI was a hundred years ago...

[virgdem]

2. This poem still resonates.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

[aikoaiko]

4. nice post.

[virgdem]

9. Thanks!

[riverwalker]

5. why red poppies?

http://www.greatwar.co.uk/article/remembrance-poppy.htm

The seeds lie dormant when undisturbed. After the battles of WW1, the seeds were disturbed and suddenly fields of red poppies would bloom in areas of previous battles.

[Strelnikov_]

12. And this song

[Feral Child]

3. "So it goes..."

REC

[LibertyLover]

6. France

for many years had a group of civilians who were experts in defusing bombs. Several years ago one of the news programs - it may have been "60 Minutes" - did a story on one of the last of them as he retired. He had recently defused armament from the Franco-Prussian War.

[onethatcares]

7. and we've scattered

how many cluster munitions throughout the world?

WAR never stops killing, never.

100 year old weapons still out there killing on and on.

if you can't tell, I'm sick and tired of war.

[AngryAmish]

8. Stupid Flanders!

[WillyT]

10. Nobody Has A Metal Detector Over There ???

Or am I missing something ?

[Xithras]

11. There's too much.

The soil around places like Ypres are absolutely saturated with debris from the wars. Everything from rifle shell casings, to bits of metal thrown off by exploding shells, to metal debris ejected out of exploding structures. There's no way to differentiate inert debris from explosive debris, and filtering it ALL out would destroy the countryside.

[WillyT]

13. Thanks... Good Info...

[Paladin]

14. Exactly.

Way too much stuff still in the ground at Ypres. Sad but true.