Divers blow up old ammo

[Mr T.]

Divers blow up
old ammo
WWI-era munitions lurked on Labrador coast By MICHAEL TUTTON / The Canadian Press

A team of navy divers, working on a treacherous Labrador shoal, have blown up most remaining shells left on the ocean bottom where an old British cruiser was scuttled.

Hundreds of First World War-era projectiles have been lying in the shallows off Forteau Bay, an inlet at Labrador's most southern coastal point, for 82 years.



CP
This navy photo shows 80-year-old ammunition being detonated off the Labrador coast.

They've occasionally washed ashore, posing a threat to residents of coastal towns and tourists who wander the shores.

HMS Raleigh ran aground in 1922 at Point Amour, Nfld., when it was pushed on to a rocky shore by the strong currents of the Strait of Belle Isle.

The British navy's engineers scuttled the ship four years later, expecting the explosion they set off would destroy hundreds of shells on board.

Instead, many of the shells survived in a highly volatile state and were littered over an area of shallow ocean bottom about 30 metres wide and several football fields long.

Master Seaman Hugo Thorne, 36, said in an interview Thursday that a team of 16 navy divers and surface technicians from Halifax have been setting off what they hope will the last of a series of underwater explosions.

Last Wednesday the divers strung a connected series of plastic explosives on to 16 of the remaining shells - each about 14 centimetres in diameter and filled with picric acid - and swam to shore with the detonation wires.

Once ashore, the team sent an electrical current to the shells, creating a massive undersea explosion that launched a plume of sea water almost 100 metres in the air.

Thorne was pleased with the latest blast.

"It's always nice to go out there and put in a day's work and get cold, and then you come out and you press a button, and it goes boom," said Thorne.

"We're down to very slim pickings. After today's diving there's probably just 10 to 12 rounds left down there. It's pretty much a done deal.

"By the counts of what we have on the ship and what we've recovered, the numbers are pretty much a match."

This is the third and probably the final year in the navy's efforts to rid the area of unexploded ordnance.

The bulk of the work was done last summer when 116 of the explosives were found in several weeks of diving.

There's been some danger involved in diving Labrador's frigid waters, said Thorne, especially during the dives to check if the shells have all blown up.

The teams await low and high tides, when the waters are calmer, to find the bombs and attach the plastic explosives.

"It's a very small window of opportunity we have there. We have to been finished in an hour and a half," he said.

"The toughest part of the diving has been dealing with surges and waves and the rocky ledge. It's a pretty adventurous ordeal, I should say."

The divers also have to be extremely cautious of the shells, which are often unstable.

The Raleigh has been the stuff of lore for the communities around Forteau Bay.

Locals occasionally find shells on the beach, and children have been known to play with the unexploded munitions.

"You can't just leave that stuff out there dormant," said Thorne. "It is ammunition. There's always a chance it could wash ashore, get in the wrong hands, and create serious damage or even death."

The diver said he expects the team has essentially finished its work, and is expecting reassignment from its Halifax base to other hazardous sites along the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

But he said it's possible a few more shells could lie between the large steel plates that once were part of HMS Raleigh.

"It's not impossible we won't have to come back," he said.

The dive team is expected to return to Nova Scotia on Friday.