British Town Worried About WWII Ammo Ship Wreck

Radical Rad writes "For 60 years, 1.4 kilotons of unstable world war II bombs have lain in the rusting wreck of a US cargo ship half-submerged on a sandbank in the river Thames. If it explodes it will be one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever with predictions of a 3 kilometre high wall of mud, water, and metal fragments causing devastation to the nearby town of Sheerness in Kent." The BBC has more.

Comments

Phew!

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad I still had time to change the vacation plans!

Please gove more precise details

[el_gibler]

Your Friend, O bin Laden.

Re:What are the odds?

[jrockway]

Let's go set them off and see! Waiting is no fun!

Idea...

[odano]

Lets nuke it and sell the video on PPV.

quality engineering

[JeanBaptiste]

i cant think of too many things designed these days that would survive 60+ years of being exposed to the elements, especially buried in a sand bank underwater... and then would still work close to specifications...

yep, they just dont build things the way they used to

Re: quality engineering

[Black Parrot]

> i cant think of too many things designed these days that would survive 60+ years of being exposed to the elements, especially buried in a sand bank underwater... and then would still work close to specifications...

FWIW, about a decade ago a fishing boat offshore from my home town drew up a honking big WWII bomb. The Coast Guard decided that popping it was the safest solution, which they did in an empty praire reachable by an inland waterway. Everyone for miles around felt their windows rattle, and no one knew what it was until the news carried the story later.

A friend says when he was a kid a fisherman / WWII vet had another big bomb hanging in his garage across the street from where he lived, right in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Never figured out whether it was live or not...

Re:How is this news for nerds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exploding things are cool. Every geek knows that.

These people are missing the point.

[multiplexo]

Rather than worry about this they should have a big tourist event around it. Figure out what the safe distance is to view this, fence off two big concentric rings around that, and then sell tickets to watch the show. They could even have different bands playing at different quadrants of the circle before the big blow-off. They could get AC/DC in one quadrant and Judas Priest in another. It would be awesome, and they could make money doing a live PPV event.

Re:Halifax Explosion Munitions Ship Explosion

[ShinmaWa]

500 people died after burning for 6 days

Ouch. That had to hurt.

Personally, I probably would put the flaming people out after a day or two.

Three days.. tops.

Coolest Thing Ever

[celeritas_2]

I have to say that watching fourteen hundred tons of the good stuff turn a river and small town into a crater would be the coolest thing to see all year. I'd even help everyone who was unforturate enough to have a house nearby clean it up.

But WAIT!!!!you're telling me that a large abandoned ship full of explosives existed exposed to the outside world for sixty some years and it WASN'T looted by hordes of pyro teenagers? There must be something fundamentally wrong with the teenagers across that ocean. Methinks not enough good ol american made rednek would fix it right up.

GITTERDUN!!!!!!!!