Boom! The explosion is resounding. This Thursday, at 1:50 p.m., a first detonation is heard inside the military schools of Draguignan. Followed by a second, even more important, twenty minutes later.
A thick cloud of smoke rises in the sky about twenty meters high, stones are thrown in the air around. The noise is impressive. Not enough to disturb the impassive sheep grazing in the adjoining Sainte-Barbe district.
In question, three shells dating from the First and the Second World War – two of caliber 75 mm and one of 150 mm – discovered on Wednesday on the Bergerol camp.
“At the end of the Second World War, the Americans trained on this ground with direct shots, with the horizontal. This is the reason why one finds there from time to time ammunition”, said the military school communications officer.
Identification and neutralization
Once the devices were discovered, the group of mine clearance divers from the Toulon National Marine was dispatched to the scene. First to identify the shells. Then to neutralize them.
“This is the procedure, it is these soldiers who are authorized for this type of intervention. Usually, the shells discovered are sent to the Canjuers camp to be destroyed.”
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But in this case, impossible. “The ammunition was deteriorated and badly damaged. We could not transport it”, explains Captain Emmanuelle, in charge of operations.
So this is a virgin training ground, within the confines of military schools, which is chosen to detonate shells in optimal security conditions. All around, a 100m security perimeter is established.
From midday, a backhoe activates to dig two holes, each three meters deep, where the shells are buried, “with the objective of securing the air range of the fragments.”
In uniform, the seven deminers were not equipped with heavy protective gear. “These are reserved for intervention on booby-trapped packages. Here, it is we who control the explosion. Even if an ammunition is never to be considered non-dangerous.”
Malleable explosives are installed in contact with the ammunition. The detonator is connected to an electrical line from which a pulse is triggered.
However, sometimes everything does not go as planned. The deminers would have had to do it several times for the 150mm bus to explode.
‘There are sometimes misfire,’ explains the captain. This can come from explosives as well as from the detonator or the power line. To identify the problem, we follow strict procedures. “
However, within an hour, the weapons were neutralized.
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VIDEO. Three shells discovered in Draguignan were neutralized by the army
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