American Views Abroad

 
Der Tagesspiegel reports on Dangerous Old Munitions in and around Berlin today. Yesterday 1000 patients and 5000 inhabitants had to be evacuated from a hospital and their homes because a 50 pound unexploded bomb from the Second World War was found by construction workers in Potsdam. It was the 58th bomb defused there since 1990. In Oranienburg, an area just north of Berlin, unexploded bombs are found at a rate of about one a month. That area was bombed particularly heavily in 1945 because it was a center of the Heinkel airplane industry. Today the entire area has to be systematically searched for such duds because they contain a long-term chemical detonator and are considered particularly dangerous because they can blow up on their own. This has happened twice since 1995 without, fortunately, large scale damage.

Like with land mines, the effects and dangers of war linger on in many forms.

- posted by Gloria @ 3:12 PM