The demining service of the Austrian Armed Forces carries out around 1,000 operations per year. One of the most spectacular missions this year was the defusing of a 250-kilo aerial bomb.
You only really realize how much war material is still buried in Austria when you see how many operations are carried out each year to defuse, recover and remove war relics. From the beginning of the year until today, a total of 685 operations have been carried out and a total of 14 tons of war materials of all kinds have been recovered, from infantry ammunition to hand grenades and aerial bombs.
Because such operations require the know-how of experts, it is usually the demining service of the Austrian Armed Forces that gets to work in such cases. Locations are usually lakes, rivers and forest areas, but also cities or alpine terrain. The demining service has five vehicles at its disposal to carry out its missions, which have already covered 104,000 kilometers this year. Thanks to the office in Vienna as well as branch offices in Graz and Hörsching and a 24-hour on-call service, the specialists can be on site within a very short time to investigate suspicious finds and eliminate dangers to the population. “The professionals in our demining service are ready to help 24 hours a day. They carry out many hundreds of missions every year and bear an enormous responsibility. I would like to thank them for their commitment and wish them continued good luck in their work,” said Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner. One of the most spectacular finds this year was a 250-kilogram aviation bundle that was found in Linz (Militär Aktuell reported). Within a few minutes, it was defused by the demining service and safely removed. The aerial bomb was a so-called “burster”. This means that the 250 kilogram bomb had partially exploded on impact, but the bomb head with the detonator and other parts of the bomb were still functional.
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