Unexploded Ordnance a Fact of Life in Germany

From the June 6, 2010, National Public Radio.

In June, in the German town of Gottingen, 3 munitions experts were killed and 6 wounded while trying to defuse a 1,100 pound Allied bomb.  And, these men had lots of experience with unexploded bombs.

Every spring and summer, as construction projects start across Germany kick off, unexploded bombs are found.

Berlin officials say there are still 4,000 unexploded bombs scattered in the city.  During the war, they estimate that 465,000 tons of bombs were dropped on the city and that one in eight didn't explode.

Some 7,300 have been found and and either disarmed or detonated in Berlin since the 1980s.

The area once known as West Berlin before the Berlin Wall came down is the safest part of Berlin since most of the unexploded ordnance dropped there has been cleared out.

Careful Where You Dig.  --GreGen