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

Re:What are the odds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another article I read elsewhere said that some of the fuses could be triggered by contact with water (too unmotivated to find the link). The bomb casings have (presumably) started to rust and decay.. if only one bomb casing springs a leak.. it could blow - and set off the rest of the explosives. And if the explosives are water-tight, it means that they aren't decaying...

Personally I think the town should be evacuated, all the windows boarded up, shipping traffic diverted - and a torpedo lobbed at it from a couple of miles away to set the entire thing off and ensure it's made safe. I wouldn't want to ask anyone to go down there to try and defuse anything - it seems far too risky.

Re:How is this news for nerds?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Because it's "News for Nerds," not "News For Nerds Who Only Care About Things That Run On Silicon." It's the obsessives who think that computers are the be-all and end-all of everything that matters who give nerds in general a bad name, IMNSGDHO.