- Unstable fuses could cause unsalvaged World War II bombs
aboard an abandoned shipwreck in the river Thames, UK, to blow, reveal
investigations by New Scientist.
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- For 60 years the people of Sheerness in Kent have been
living next door to a 1400-tonne time bomb. A lethal mixture of unstable
second world war bombs is in the rusting wreck of the Richard Montgomery,
a US cargo ship that lies half-submerged on a sandbank in the Thames, only
two kilometres from the Kentish town.
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- If the wreck explodes it will be one of the biggest non-nuclear
explosions ever. The cargo contains a mixture of fused and unfused bombs
that were destined to support the Allied push in France following the D-Day
landings.
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- For the first time a New Scientist investigation has
established that UK government explosives experts believe that some of
the fuses are unstable. Even a small shock could cause one of them to detonate,
setting off part or all of the rest of the cargo.
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- Deadly cargo
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- The investigation has uncovered official estimates of
the devastation that the explosion would cause, including predictions of
a three kilometre high column of water, mud, metal and munitions sent into
the air by the blast.
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- Five years ago the government asked independent consultants
to carry out a risk assessment of the wreck. The consultants said that
the safest course of action would be to remove the wreck's deadly cargo.
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- In 2001 the government held a meeting in Southampton
to discuss what should be done about the wreck. But three years later this
risk assessment remains unpublished and the Richard Montgomery remains
on its sandbank, slowly rusting.
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- Full exclusive details are published in New Scientist
print edition, 21 August.
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- http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996280
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