European wildfires reveal hidden danger: Buried bombs, mines from world wars
ELSENBORN, Belgium — The wildfires burning across Europe this summer have exposed a potentially deadly threat lurking beneath the blackened landscape: rusty bombs and mines from World War I and II that threaten crews responding to the flames. Some of the weapons have exploded in the intense heat. Blasts have been reported in France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, where a bomb-disposal team…
The wildfires currently ravaging Europe have unearthed a hidden danger beneath the scorched landscape: unexploded bombs and mines from World War I and II. These rusty weapons have already caused explosions in France, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands, with a bomb-disposal team having to be deployed in the Netherlands to assess a forest threatened by flames near a site of intense fighting during the war.
The increasing frequency and intensity of these fires, fueled by climate change, have shown that Europe's "climatic luck" is running out, as steady temperatures and predictable rainfall once kept most buried weapons dormant. Sarah Njeri, a peace and conflict scholar, noted that climate change is now unburying and reactivating these munitions, which can ignite during fires or burn away the vegetation that conceals them.
This wildfire season has been exacerbated by heavy rains in January, adding to the urgency of addressing this hidden threat.
Brief written by urgent.news from The Korea Times's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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