Culture

15,000 canon grenades originating from WWI discovered in North Macedonia

Bitola (North Macedonia), Nov 25 (EFE/EPA), (Camera: Gjorgi Licovski).- A group of pyrotechnicians from the Agency for Safety and Rescue excavated 7.000 unexploded, 75-mm calibre grenades from World War I, near the 'Tumbekafe' football stadium at Bitola in North Macedonia. In addition, 500 grenades were removed in October 2019, and an estimated 10.000 more may still be found in deeper layers beneath the same location. It is impossible to destroy the ammunition on the site because, according to pyrotechnicians the potential explosion's two-kilometre radius would require evacuating local residents. More than a hundred army trucks will relocate the grenades to the 'Krivolak' army camp, where they will be destroyed during the next months. FOOTAGE OF THE CANON GRENADES.SOUNDBITES OF:-GJORGI STEFANOV, PYROTECHNICIAN:"When I came here for the first time after our institution received the call that someone had found a howitzer, I realized that we were looking at an unloaded 75mm military howitzer. When we started to clean it, we realized that there was more than f 10 or 15 howitzers."-EFTIM MITROV, COORDINATOR OF THE TEAM: “If an explosion happened in this place, this part of the city, the stadium, the new neighbourhood in front of us... Within a radius of 1.5 km, everything would be destroyed. All the windows and doors (from here) to the city centre would be smashed."