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user-inactivated · 2418 days ago · link · · parent · post: Berlin police defuse WW2 bomb after evacuation
It's disheartening that everybody dropped so many bombs during World War II that even decades later we're still finding them. They not only speak to the scale and brutality of the war, but they're also potentially deadly ghosts from the past. As bad as unexploded bombs are, landmines are even worse. They literally kill thousands of people a year (many of them civilians and many of them well after conflicts have ended), leave land unusable for farming, building, or traveling, and erosion caused by heavy rains or flooding is all it takes to unearth old mines and make an area that once was considered relatively safe dangerous all over again.