Africa shell during a
United Nations Mine Action Service demonstration in Mogadishu
Effects of the North African campaign of World War II During the fighting in North Africa between the Axis and Allied forces, much of North Africa was heavily mined to prevent military advances. During the conflict, in addition to the millions of mines that were placed, some of the millions of shells which were fired did not explode, and remain deadly to this day.
Algeria,
Egypt,
Libya and
Tunisia are all affected by this issue, with civilians being injured and killed every year. UXO also slows progress, with areas having to be demined before being developed.
Algeria Algeria has been contaminated with large numbers of mines and UXO throughout several wars, starting from World War II. During the
Algerian war for independence, French forces laid up to 10 million mines on the
Morice and Challe lines, on the eastern and western sides of the country. In 2007, France officially handed over maps to Algerian authorities showing the locations of minefields. The lack of these maps had previously severely hampered Algerian demining efforts. Further mines were laid in the
Algerian civil war by both warring parties, requiring further demining efforts. However, these mining operations were not on nearly as large a scale as French operations.
Egypt Egypt is the most heavily mined country in the world (by number) with as many as 22.7 million mines as of 2024. It is estimated that 22% of Egypt's territory is mined. These mines are from both World War II and wars that Egypt has fought with
Israel. Mines contaminate large amounts of agricultural land, slowing development efforts. De-mining is a priority in the country to open up more land for agriculture purposes, oil drilling and mining. Nevertheless, Egypt stresses its need to deploy mines in order to protect its borders.
Ethiopia Ethiopia was heavily mined in
World War II, the
Eritrean War of Independence, the
Eritrean-Ethiopian War, and the
Tigray War. The most heavily affected regions are
Afar,
Somali, and
Tigray regions which have seen repeated conflict. A study in 2004 found that landmines and UXO affected an estimated 1.5 million people. Between 2000 and 2004, they caused 588 fatalities and 1,300 injuries. Libya was contaminated during its wars with
Egypt and
Chad, and it is also believed that the border with Tunisia is contaminated. While
Muammar Gaddafi was in power in Libya, mines were placed around military facilities and other key infrastructure. With hostilities breaking out again in 2014, there were reports of both landmines and IEDs being laid by opposition groups, particularly in urban areas. This complicated clearance operations as these areas are often densely populated.
Mali Major contamination of Mali with UXO stems from the resurgence of conflict in 2012 Mali. Mines and IEDs were laid more heavily in the north of the country. The situation deteriorated in 2019; however, the extent of the contamination is unknown, as there has been no clear mapping of the country's minefields.
Mauritania Mine and UXO contamination stems from Mauritania's
1976–1978 war in the Western Sahara, while fighting against the Polisario front over the region. UXO is largely concentrated in the north of the country, around urban centres, where heavy fighting took place. Following the urbanisation of 70% of the country's
nomadic population, urban expansion has strayed into mine belts. As many of these nomads still follow pastoral practises, valuable livestock and people can stray into contact with mines. Despite this, people are unwilling to move due to the fact that Northern Mauritania is known as the best place to raise camels. It is also difficult to precisely mark mines, due to the fact that dunes can rapidly change their location. Although the country was declared mine free in 2018, Mauritania reported the discovery of previously unknown mined areas. As of 2023, an estimated of Mauritania was contaminated with mines.
Morocco The contamination of Moroccan territory is a consequence of the conflict between the
Royal Moroccan Army and the
Polisario Front over the
Western Sahara. The majority of the contamination is confined to the area around the
Moroccan Western Sahara wall. All along the length of the wall (on the Eastern side) runs a minefield, sometimes claimed to be the world's longest continual minefield. During the
1975–1991 conflict, the Moroccan army used cluster munitions, and unexploded bomblets still kill and maim uneducated citizens to this day. Prior to the resumption of hostilities in November 2020, both the UN and the Moroccan army claimed to have destroyed tens of thousands of land mines, and cleared hundreds of square kilometres of land.
Niger In 2018
Niger reported a known contaminated area near Madama military base, totalling just over . Clearance of approximately took place up to March 2020, however no clearance is thought to have taken place since then. In 2023, Niger reported that there were just under 0.2 km2 of contaminated areas near the Madama military base. The spread of conflicts in the
Lake Chad and
Liptako-Gourma regions has contributed new UXO to the regions, with some insurgencies spreading to Niger. IEDs have seen increased use, some victim activated and some indiscriminate. Many of the mines used by insurgencies such as
Boko Haram are used to target military convoys and vehicles, however inevitably there are civilian casualties. Between 2016 and the end of 2022, the National Commission for the Collection and Control of Illicit weapons reported 183 explosive ordnance incidents, killing 203 and wounding 204. 80% of the incidents occurred in the
Tillabéri and
Diffa regions.
Sudan Sudan's mine contamination largely stems from its
civil war and
other wars since the country's
independence from Britain. In 2005, a peace agreement between the rebel forces (mainly the
Sudan People's Liberation Movement) and the government brought an end to fighting, and along with it mine laying. In 2009, the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) reported that across 16 Sudanese states, contamination totalled . Despite conflict breaking out in 2011, by early 2023 it was reported that only just over of Sudanese land was contaminated with mines, and slightly more contaminated with UXO. In April 2023,
heavy fighting broke out between the
Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and the
Rapid Support Forces, (RSF), a paramilitary organisation. The SAF alleges that the RSF has laid mines, but as of April 2024 no evidence has emerged to support that claim. Other UXO in Canada is found on sites used by the Canadian military for operations, training and weapons tests, such as the former Tracadie Range, in Tracadie-Sheila, New Brunswick. These sites are labeled under the "legacy sites" program created in 2005 to identify areas and quantify risk due to UXO. There has been controversy because some lands appropriated by the military during World War II were owned by
First Nations, such as that make up
Camp Ipperwash in Ontario, which was given with the understanding that the land would be given back at the end of the war. These lands have required and still need extensive clean-up efforts due to the possible presence of UXO. After Afghanistan, Colombia has the second-highest number of landmine casualties, with more than 11,500 people killed or injured by landmines since 1990, according to Colombian government figures. In September 2012, the
Colombian peace process began officially in
Havana and in August 2016, the US and Norway initiated an international five-year demining program, now supported by another 24 countries and the
European Union. Both the Colombian military and FARC are taking part in the
demining efforts. The program intends to rid Colombia of landmines and other UXO by 2021 and it has been funded with nearly US$112 million, including US$33 million from the US (as part of the larger US foreign policy
Plan Colombia) and US$20 million from Norway. Experts however, have estimated that it will take at least a decade due to the difficult terrain.
United States Unlike many countries in Europe and Asia, the United States has not been subjected to significant aerial bombardment. Nevertheless, according to the Department of Defense, "millions of acres" of US territory may contain UXO, discarded military munitions (DMM) and munitions constituents (e.g., explosive compounds). According to United States
Environmental Protection Agency documents released in late 2002, UXO at 16,000 domestic inactive military ranges within the United States pose an "imminent and substantial" public health risk and could require the largest environmental cleanup ever, at a cost of at least US$14
billion. Some individual ranges cover , and, taken together, the ranges comprise an area the size of
Florida. On
Joint Base Cape Cod (JBCC) on
Cape Cod, Massachusetts, decades of artillery training have contaminated the only drinking water for thousands of surrounding residents. A costly UXO recovery effort is under way. UXO on US military bases has caused problems for transferring and restoring
Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) land. The
Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to commercialize former munitions testing grounds are complicated by UXO, making investments and development risky. The area around
Fort St. Philip, Louisiana is also covered in UXO from the naval bombardment, and caution would be taken when visiting the ruins. UXO cleanup in the US involves over of land and 1,400 different sites. Estimated cleanup costs are tens of billions of dollars. It costs roughly $1,000 to demolish a UXO on site. Other costs include surveying and mapping, removing vegetation from the site, transportation, and personnel to manually detect UXOs with metal detectors. Searching for UXOs is tedious work and often 100 holes are dug to every 1 UXO found. Other methods of finding UXOs include digital geophysics detection with land and airborne systems.
Examples In December 2007, UXO was discovered in new development areas outside
Orlando, Florida, and construction had to be halted. In 1917, in response to other nations' extensive use of
chemical weapons in
World War I, the US Army
Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) opened a weapons research laboratory and production facility at
American University in Washington, D.C. CWS troops at the station routinely fired incendiary and chemical projectiles into a nearby undeveloped area that became known as "
No Man's Land". When the station was deactivated after the war in 1919, UXO in No Man's Land was abandoned there, and unused projectiles and toxic chemicals were buried in deep, poorly mapped pits. Collegiate athletic fields, businesses and homes were subsequently built in the area. Chemical UXO continues to be periodically found on and near campus, and in 2001, the USACE began cleanup efforts after arsenic was found in soil at the athletic fields. In 2017, the USACE was cautiously excavating a university-owned property in an adjacent neighborhood where investigators believed that a large unmapped cache of
mustard gas projectiles was buried. Although comparatively rare, unexploded ordnance from the
American Civil War is still occasionally found and is still deadly over 150 years later.
Union and
Confederate troops fired an estimated 1.5 million artillery shells at each other from 1861 to 1865. As many as one in five did not explode. In 1973, during the restoration of
Weston Manor, an 18th-century plantation house in
Hopewell, Virginia, that was shelled by Union gunboats during the Civil War, a live shell was found embedded in the dining room ceiling. The ball was disarmed and is shown to visitors to the plantation. In late March 2008, a , mortar shell was uncovered at the
Petersburg National Battlefield, the site of a 292-day siege. The shell was taken to the city landfill where it was safely detonated by ordnance disposal experts.
Asia Japan Thousands of tons of UXO remains buried across Japan, particularly in
Okinawa, where over 200,000 tons of ordnance were dropped during the final year of World War II. From 1945 until the end of the U.S. occupation of the island in 1972, the
Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) and the US military disposed of 5,500 tons of UXO. Over 30,000 UXO disposal operations have been conducted on Okinawa by the JSDF since 1972, and it is estimated it could take close to a century to dispose of the remaining unexploded munitions on the islands. No injuries or deaths have been reported as a result of UXO disposal, however.
Tokyo and other major cities, including
Kobe,
Yokohama and
Fukuoka, were targeted by several massive air raids during World War II, which left behind large amounts of UXO. Shells from
Imperial Army and
Imperial Navy guns also continue to be discovered. On 29 October 2012, an unexploded US bomb with a functioning detonator was discovered near a runway at
Sendai Airport during reconstruction following the
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, resulting in the airport being closed and all flights cancelled. The airport reopened the next day after the bomb was safely contained, but closed again on 14 November while the bomb was defused and safely removed. In March 2013, an unexploded Imperial Army
anti-aircraft shell measuring long was discovered at a construction site in Tokyo's
Kita Ward, close to the Kaminakazato Station on the JR
Keihin Tohoku Line. The shell was detonated in place by a
JGSDF UXO disposal squad in June, causing 150 scheduled rail and Shinkansen services to be halted for three hours and affecting 90,000 commuters. In July, an unexploded US bomb from an air raid was discovered near the Akabane Station in the Kita Ward and defused on site by the JGSDF in November, resulting in the evacuation of 3,000 households nearby and causing several trains to be halted for an hour while the bomb was being defused. On 13 April 2014, the JGSDF defused and removed an unexploded US oil
incendiary bomb discovered at a construction site in
Kurume,
Fukuoka Prefecture, which required the evacuation of 740 people living nearby. On 16 March 2015, a bomb was found in central
Osaka. In December 2019, 100 buildings were evacuated to remove a World War II bomb found on Okinawa's
Camp Kinser. On 2 October 2024, more than 80 flights were cancelled at
Miyazaki Airport after a previously undetected World War II bomb detonated under a
taxiway, leaving a substantial crater. No aircraft were nearby and no injuries were reported. Officials launched an investigation into what caused the bomb to suddenly explode.
Indian Administered Kashmir Tosa Maidan, a scenic meadow in the Budgam district of Indian-administered Kashmir, was used as a military firing range by the
Indian Army and
Indian Air Force from 1964 to 2014. Decades of artillery exercises left the area littered with UXO, resulting in civilian casualties. Official records attribute at least 63 deaths and over 150 injuries to UXO explosions, though local reports suggest higher figures. In 2014, after significant public protests, the government declined to renew the military's lease. The Indian Army subsequently initiated "Operation Falah" to clear the area of unexploded ordnance. Despite these efforts, sporadic explosions continue to pose risks, leading to ongoing demands for thorough demining and compensation for affected families.
South Asia Afghanistan According to
The Guardian, since 2001, the coalition forces dropped about 20,000 tonnes of ammunition over Afghanistan with an estimated 10% of munitions not detonated according to some experts. Many valleys, fields and dry riverbeds in Macca have been used by foreign soldiers as firing ranges, leaving them peppered with undetonated ammunition. Despite the removal of 16.5 million items since mine-clearing programmes were established in 1989 after the Soviet withdrawal, Macca and its predecessors have recorded 22,000 casualties in the same period.
Southeast Asia Cambodia Laos "bombie" in Laos
Laos is considered the world's most heavily bombed nation per capita. of ordnance on Laos, most of it anti-personnel
cluster bombs. Each cluster bomb shell contained hundreds of individual bomblets, "bombies", about the size of a tennis ball. An estimated 30% of these munitions did not detonate. From 1996 to 2009, more than 1 million items of UXO were destroyed, freeing up 23,000 hectares of land. Between 1999 and 2008, there were 2,184 casualties (including 834 deaths) from UXO incidents. Since the end of the conflict in 1975, unexploded ordnance, mostly from US bombing, has killed or injured over 25,000 people, half of them being children. UXOs continue to be a contentious issue as it has impeded infrastructure development and railway construction within the nation, including the
Boten–Vientiane railway which required clearing thousands of hectares for UXO and shrapnel.
Malaysia In Malaysia, UXOs dating all the way back to
World War II (
Malayan campaign,
Battle of Borneo (1941-1942),
Borneo campaign) are frequently uncovered well into the 21st century.
Singapore World War II UXOs dating to the
Battle of Singapore are occasionally encountered. These can cause considerable disruption to public life due to the high population density of the city-state. A 250kg World War II aerial bomb was discovered at Changi East construction site for the future Changi Airport Terminal 5 on 31 March 2026. Changi East is part of Changi Airport's expansion project, including the future Terminal 5. The bomb would be disposed on 1 April 2026 by the Singapore Armed Forces. The unexploded bomb is believed to be the heaviest found in Singapore in recent times.
Vietnam In Vietnam, 800,000 tons of landmines and unexploded ordnance is buried in the land and mountains. From 1975 to 2015, up to 100,000 people have been injured or killed by bombs left over from the second Indochina war. Nearly one-fifth of the land is contaminated by UXOs. One of the most heavily contaminated province,
Quảng Trị, has seen at least 3500 deaths since the end of the war and ongoing efforts will require over a decade to clear.
"The National Action Plan for the Prevention and Fighting of Unexploded Ordnance and Mines from 2010 to 2025" has been prepared and promulgated by the Vietnamese Government in April 2010.
Middle East Iraq shell dating from the
Gulf War (1990–1991) Iraq is widely contaminated with unexploded remnants of war from the
Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), the
Gulf War (1990–1991), the
Iraq War (2003–2011) and the
Iraqi Civil War (2014–2017). The UXO in Iraq poses a particularly serious threat to civilians as millions of
cluster bomb munitions were dropped in towns and densely populated areas by
Coalition forces, mostly in the first few weeks of the
2003 invasion of Iraq. An estimated 30% of the munitions failed to detonate on impact and small unexploded bombs are regularly found in and around homes in Iraq, frequently maiming or killing civilians and restricting land use. From 1991 to 2009, an estimated 8,000 people were killed or maimed by cluster bomblets alone, 2,000 of which were children. Land mines are another part of the UXO problem in Iraq as they litter large areas of farmland and many oil fields, severely affecting economic recovery and development. Reporting and monitoring is lacking in Iraq and no completely reliable survey and overview of the local threat levels exists. Useful statistics on injuries and deaths caused by UXO are also missing; only singular local reports exist.
UNDP and
UNICEF however, issued a partial survey report in 2009, concluding that the entire country is contaminated and more than 1.6 million Iraqis are affected by UXO. More than in total are saturated with unexploded ordnance (including land mines). The south-east region and Baghdad are the most heavily contaminated areas and UNDP has designated around 4,000 communities as "hazard areas". Kuwait has the largest amount of landmines per square mile in the world. Following the start of UXO removal, an estimated 1,486 casualties have occurred. There are numerous mines, bombs and other explosives left from the Persian Gulf war, which makes a simple U-turn on a dirt road a life-threatening maneuver, unless performed entirely in an area covered by fresh tire tracks. Risking walking or driving in unknown areas puts oneself in danger of detonating those forgotten explosives. Weeks right after the Gulf War, hospitals in Kuwait reported that mines did not appear to be a major cause of injury. Six weeks after the Iraqi retreat, at Ahmadi Hospital, in an area thick with cluster bombs and Iraqi mines, the only injury was a hospital employee who had picked up an anti-personnel bomb as a souvenir. In 2014, fighting from the Syrian civil war spilled over into Lebanon when members of the
Al-Nusra Front militant group attacked the town of
Arsal, after one of their leaders was arrested. Fighting ensued for several days, and
improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were left behind when the militants retreated. In 2015, the al-Nusra front attacked and seized some Israeli territory, and it took until 2017 for the LBF to fully dislodge them. They left behind IEDs to harm civilians, but these were fully cleared by 2023. During the
2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, the
Israel Defense Forces used large amounts of cluster weapons. For the majority of the war, they were used to target
Hezbollah rocket launch points after they were detected by radar. Civilian casualties were reasonably low at this time, as many civilians had fled or were sheltering in basement. During the conflict, four million submunitions are estimated to have been dropped on South Lebanon. However, during the final 72 hours of this war, before the ceasefire, both
Hezbollah and Israeli rates of fire greatly increased. It is estimated that 90% cluster bombs used during the war were used in this time. Large areas were affected. It is thought that the Israeli
bomblets have a failure rate of about 40%, which is much higher compared to other weapons. For this reason, hundreds of thousands of bomblets still litter the Israeli countryside, killing and maiming people every year. This is also the case for the borderland in South Lebanon as Khayyat argues, where the areas in which south Lebanese farmers work and herd their sheep are filled with ordnance and mines left from both the
Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon and the
2006 Lebanon War. This leaves the farmers to need to adapt to the bomb-filled environment as post-war efforts to remove unexploded ordnance and mines by international humanitarian organisations has arguably faltered out with time.
Yemen Since the start of the
Yemeni Civil War, the country has been plagued with unexploded munitions. In 2022 alone, the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Yemen Executive Mine Action Centre (YEMAC), and Yemen Mine Action Co-ordination Centre (Y-MACC) destroyed or removed 81,000 explosive devices, including 9,054 anti-vehicle landmines, 861 anti-personnel landmines, and 3,149 improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which in turn significantly reduced the risk of death or injury from IEDs over .
Europe Despite enormous demining efforts, Europe is still affected by UXO, mainly from World War I and World War II, some countries more than others. However, more recent military conflicts have also affected some areas severely, in particular Ukraine and the western
Balkans. After WWII, large quantities of unexploded ordnance were disposed of primarily in the
Baltic Sea and
North Sea, as well as other lakes and rivers to a smaller extent. These
submerged munitions still represent a major threat to fishers and marine wildlife.
Austria Unexploded ordnance from World War II in Austria is blown up twice a year in the military training area near
Allentsteig. Moreover, explosives are still being recovered from lakes, rivers and mountains dating back to World War I on the
Italian Front between
Austria-Hungary and
Italy.
Balkans As a result of the
Yugoslav Wars (1991–2001), the countries of
Albania,
Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Croatia and
Kosovo have all been affected by UXOs, mostly land mines in regions where intense fighting took place. Due to the lack of awareness of these post-war landmines, civilian casualties have risen since the end of the wars. As many as 2,000 people have been killed by these landmines alone, with countless others dying due to different unexploded munitions. Many efforts made by peacekeeping forces in Bosnia such as
IFOR,
SFOR (and its successor
EUFOR ALTHEA), and in Kosovo with
KFOR in order to contain these landmines have been met with some difficulty. Landslides caused by heavy rainfall and flooding have led to migration of landmines, further complicating efforts. The Federal Civil Protection Administration (FUCZ) team deactivated and destroyed four World War II bombs found at a construction site in the centre of
Sarajevo in September 2019. In November 2023, a US-funded project cleared over 395 acres of mined land in
Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina's sixth-largest city, and declared the area mine-free. As of September 2023, the Bosnia and Herzegovina Mine Action Center estimates that over 200,000 acres in the country are still hazardous in contrast to the over 1 million acres considered unsafe in 1996. The US is also supporting the government in an effort to clear
Brčko District by the end of 2024.
France and Belgium In the
Ardennes region of France, large-scale citizen evacuations were necessary during MEC removal operations in 2001. In the forests of
Verdun, French government
démineurs working for the
Département du Déminage still hunt for poisonous, volatile, and/or explosive munitions and recover about 900 tons every year. The most feared are corroded artillery shells containing
chemical warfare agents such as
mustard gas. French and Flemish farmers still find many UXOs when ploughing their fields, the so-called "
iron harvest". In Belgium, Dovo, the country's bomb disposal unit, recovers between 150 and 200 tons of unexploded bombs each year. Over 20 members of the unit have been killed since it was formed in 1919. In February 2019, a bomb was found at a construction site at
Porte de la Chapelle, near the
Gare du Nord in Paris. The bomb, which led to a temporary cancellation of
Eurostar trains to Paris and evacuation of 2,000 people, was probably dropped by the
RAF in April 1944, targeting the Nazi-occupied Paris before the
D-Day landings in
Normandy.
Germany dropped by the
RAF during
World War II. Found in the
Rhine near
Koblenz, 4 December 2011. A linear
shaped charge has been placed on top of the casing. In Germany, the responsibility for UXO disposal falls to
the states, each of which operates a bomb disposal unit. These are known as the (
KMBD) or (KRD) ("Explosive Ordnance Disposal Service") and are commonly part of the
state police or report directly to a
mid-level administrative district. Germany's bomb squads are considered some of the busiest worldwide, deactivating a bomb every two weeks. Concentration is especially high in
Berlin, where many
artillery shells and smaller munitions from the
Battle of Berlin are uncovered each year. One of the largest individual pieces ever found was an unexploded
'Tallboy' bomb uncovered in the
Sorpe Dam in 1958.
2010s In 2011, a RAF bomb from World War II was uncovered in
Koblenz on the bottom of the
Rhine River after a prolonged drought. It caused the evacuation of 45,000 people from the city. While most cases only make local news, one of the more spectacular finds was an American aerial bomb discovered in
Munich on 28 August 2012. As it was deemed too unsafe for transport, it had to be exploded on site, shattering windows over a wide area of
Schwabing and causing structural damage to several homes despite precautions to minimize damage. In February 2015, a British unexploded bomb was discovered near
Signal Iduna Park in
Dortmund. In May 2015, some 20,000 people had to leave their homes in
Cologne in order to be safe while a bomb was defused. On 20 December 2016, another 1,800 kg RAF bomb was found in the city centre of
Augsburg and prompted the evacuation of 54,000 people on 25 December, which was considered the biggest bomb-related evacuation in Germany's post-war history at the time. In May 2017, 50,000 people in
Hanover had to be evacuated in order to defuse three British unexploded bombs. On 29 August 2017, a British
HC 4000 bomb was discovered during construction work near the
Goethe University in
Frankfurt, requiring the evacuation of approximately 70,000 people within a radius of . This was the largest evacuation in Germany since World War II. Later, it was successfully defused on 3 September. In the meantime, 21,000 residents in Koblenz were evacuated due to an unexploded bomb dropped by the United States. On 8 April 2018, a 1,800 kg bomb was defused in
Paderborn, which caused the evacuation of more than 26,000 people. On 24 May 2018, a bomb was defused in
Dresden after the initial attempts of deactivation failed, and caused a small explosion. On 3 July 2018, a 250 kg bomb was disabled in
Potsdam which caused 10,000 people to be evacuated from the region. In August 2018, 18,500 people in the city of
Ludwigshafen had to be evacuated, in order to detonate a bomb dropped by American forces. In Summer 2018, high temperatures caused a decrease in the water level of the
Elbe River in which grenades, mines and other explosives
founded in the eastern German states of
Saxony-Anhalt and
Saxony were dumped. In October 2018, a World War II bomb was found during construction work in
Europaviertel, Frankfurt, 16,000 people were affected within a radius of . In November 2018, 10,000 people had to be evacuated, in order to defuse an American unexploded bomb found in Cologne. In December 2018, a World War II bomb was discovered in
Mönchengladbach. On 31 January 2019, a World War II bomb was detonated in
Lingen,
Lower Saxony, which caused property damage of shattering windows and the evacuation of 9,000 people. In February 2019, an American unexploded bomb was found in
Essen, which led to the evacuation of 4,000 residents within a radius of of defusing work. A few weeks later, a bomb led to the evacuation of 8,000 people in
Nuremberg. In March 2019, another 250 kg bomb was found in
Rostock. In April 2019, a World War II bomb was found near the U.S. military facilities in
Wiesbaden. On 14 April 2019, 600 people were evacuated when a bomb was discovered in Frankfurt's River Main. Divers with the city's fire service were participating in a routine training exercise when they found the 250 kg device. Later in April, thousands were evacuated in both
Regensburg and
Cologne, upon the discovery of unexploded ordnance. On 23 June 2019, a World War II aerial bomb that was buried underground in a field in
Limburg self-detonated and left a crater that measured wide and deep. Though no one was injured, the explosion was powerful enough to register a minor tremor of 1.7 on the Richter scale. In June 2019, a World War II bomb, weighing , was found near the
European Central Bank in
Frankfurt am Main. More than 16,000 people were told to evacuate the location before the bomb was defused by the ordnance authorities on 7 July 2019. On 2 September 2019, over 15,000 people were evacuated in Hanover, after a World War II aerial bomb, weighing , was found at a construction site.
2020s In January 2020, 14,000 residents in Dortmund were ordered to leave their homes, during the disposal of two bombs dropped by American and British forces. On 2 August 2021, 3,000 residents had to evacuate a radius of the discovery site of a unexploded bomb in
Borsigplatz area of Dortmund. On 29 October 2021, a five-year-old boy discovered a British hand grenade from World War II on the playground of his
kindergarten "An der Beverbäke" in
Oldenburg. He took it home in his backpack. The kindergarten is located on a former barracks site used by the Bundeswehr until 2007, which was converted into a residential area. On 1 December 2021, an old aircraft bomb exploded in the city of
Munich during construction near
Donnersbergerbruecke station. On 11 October 2023, authorities ordered residents in
Huckarde, Dortmund to leave their homes, with a radius from the discovery site of a unexploded ordnance. A month later, on 10 November, a security perimeter was established in
Nordhausen, following the discovery of a unexploded bomb. On 26 April 2024, authorities defused a unexploded American bomb that had been discovered two days earlier at a university expansion site in
Mainz. The discovery prompted the evacuation of residents within a radius of , affecting approximately 3,500 people. In August and October 2024, four bombs were found and safely defused in Cologne, including a 1-ton U.S. WWII bomb which was discovered during construction work in
Merheim. Authorities initially tried to defuse the bomb but could only remove one of its two fuses, leading to a controlled detonation on 11 October 2024. The operation, described as the most complex since 1945, required evacuating 6,400 residents and clearing three nearby hospitals. On 4 June 2025, three WWII-era U.S. bombs were defused in Cologne's
Deutz district after being uncovered during construction work. The devices—two weighing approximately and one around —were equipped with impact fuses and triggered the evacuation of roughly 20,000 people. Later that month, on 17 June, approximately 11,000 people were evacuated in
Osnabrück's Lokviertel district to enable the defusal of a 500-kilogram World War II bomb. Later that year, on 4 December, a 450-kg British bomb was found in Cologne's Klettenbergpark, prompting the evacuation of 8,400 residents. In January 2026, around 6,200 people were evacuated in
Aachen after a 250-kilogram unexploded bomb was found near the city centre, leading to temporary railway disruptions. In March of the same year, approximately 18,000 residents were evacuated in
Dresden following the discovery of a 250-kilogram British bomb during construction work, with authorities establishing a wide exclusion zone for defusal operations. Around the same time, a 450-kilogram U.S. bomb discovered at a construction site in
Nuremberg prompted evacuations within a several-hundred-metre radius and caused transport disruptions.
Malta Malta, then a
British colony, was
heavily bombarded by Italian and German aircraft during World War II. During the war the
Royal Engineers had a Bomb Disposal Section which cleared about 7,300 unexploded bombs between 1940 and 1942. UXO is still being found intermittently in Malta as of the early 21st century, and the Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit of the
Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) is responsible for removing such ordnance. In July 2021, a
Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar which likely fell off a British warship during the war was discovered on a beach in
Marsaxlokk and it was successfully removed by the AFM.
Poland Unexploded ordnance from World War II is frequently discovered. For example, only in one month of 2024, 31 thousand UXOs were discovered and secured by Polish sappers. In October 2020,
Polish Navy divers discovered a six-ton "Tallboy" British bomb. During the attempt to remotely neutralise the bomb, it exploded in a shipping canal off the Polish port city of
Świnoujscie. The Polish Navy considered it a success because the divers were able to ultimately destroy the munition with zero casualties reported. The government reportedly took all necessary measures before they started to defuse the bomb, which included evacuating 750 residents from the site.
Spain Since the 1980s, more than 750,000 pieces of UXO from the
Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) has been recovered and destroyed by the
Guardia Civil in Spain. In the 2010s, around 1,000 bombs, artillery shells and grenades have been defused every year.
Ukraine Ukraine is contaminated with UXO from World War II, former Soviet military training and the current
Russo-Ukrainian War. Most of the UXO from the World Wars has presumably been removed by demining efforts in the mid-1970s, but sporadic remnants may remain in unknown locations. The UXO from the recent military conflicts includes both landmines and cluster bomblets dropped and set by both Ukrainian, anti-government and Russian forces. Reports of
booby traps harming civilians also exist. Ukraine reports that
Donetsk and
Luhansk Oblast are the regions mostly affected by unexploded submunitions. Proper, reliable statistics are currently unavailable, and information from the involved combatants are possibly politically biased and partly speculative. However, 600 deaths and 2,000 injured due to UXO in 2014 and 2015 alone have been accounted for. Since the beginning of the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, both Russia and Ukraine have extensively used mines. As of 22 July 2023, it is estimated that an area of of Ukraine are mined. The
World Bank estimates that it will take $37.4 billion to clear the currently mined areas of Ukraine over a period of ten years. The
Ukraine Mine Action Conference (UMAC2024) hosted by Switzerland and Ukraine aims to clear 10 million hectares (12.3 million acres) of land from land mines and UXO, this equates to roughly 10% of Ukraine's arable land. Before the invasion of Ukraine, agriculture made up some 11% of Ukraine's
GDP, at the end of 2023 this figure had fallen to 7.4%. According to data presented in a
Tony Blair Institute report, land mines are "suppressing Ukraine's GDP by $11.2 billion (€10.27 billion) each year — equivalent to roughly 5.6% of GDP in 2021".
United Kingdom prepares to dispose of an unexploded bomb during
World War I. UXO is standard terminology in the United Kingdom, although in
artillery, especially on practice ranges, an unexploded shell is referred to as a
blind, and during
the Blitz in
World War II an unexploded bomb was referred to as a
UXB. Most current UXO risk is limited to areas in cities, mainly
London,
Sheffield and
Portsmouth, that were heavily bombed during the Blitz, and to land used by the
military to store ammunition and for training. According to the Construction Industry Research and Information Association (
CIRIA), from 2006 to 2009 over 15,000 items of ordnance were found in construction sites in the UK. It is not uncommon for many homes to be evacuated temporarily when a bomb is found. In April 2007, 1,000 residents were evacuated in Plymouth when a World War II bomb was discovered, and in June 2008 a bomb was found in Bow in East London. In 2009 CIRIA published
Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) – a guide for the construction industry to provide advice on assessing the risk posed by UXO. The burden of Explosive Ordnance Disposal in the UK is split between
Royal Engineers Bomb Disposal Officers,
Royal Logistic Corps Ammunition Technicians in the
Army, Clearance Divers of the
Royal Navy and the Armourers of the
Royal Air Force. The
Metropolitan Police of London is the only force not to rely on the
Ministry of Defence, although they generally focus on contemporary
terrorist devices rather than unexploded ordnance and will often call
military teams in to deal with larger and historical bombs. In May 2016, a bomb was found at the former
Royal High Junior School in
Bath which led to 1,000 houses being evacuated. In September 2016, a bomb was discovered on the seabed in
Portsmouth Harbour. In March 2017, a bomb was found in
Brondesbury Park, London. In May 2017, a device was detonated in
Birmingham. In February 2018, a bomb was discovered in the
Thames which forced
London City Airport to cancel all the scheduled flights. In February 2019, a explosive device was located and destroyed in
Dovercourt, near
Harwich,
Essex. On 26 September 2019, Invicta Valley Primary School in Kings Hill was reportedly evacuated after an unexploded World War II bomb was discovered in its vicinity. In February 2021, thousands of residents of
Exeter were evacuated from their homes prior to the detonation of a World War II bomb; the ensuing blast blew out windows and caused structural damage to nearby homes, leaving some uninhabitable. On 20 February 2024, a bomb from World War II was found in the garden of a residential property in
Keyham, Plymouth. This prompted one of the largest evacuations in the UK since World War II, with more than 10,000 people evacuated. On 24 February, the bomb was taken out to sea and detonated, and the cordon in the area lifted. File:Danger Don't Touch Art.IWMPST2904.jpg|A World War II-era poster warning about unexploded ordnance File:This Child Found a 'blind' Art.IWMPST2941.jpg|1943 poster by
Abram Games warning against leaving blinds on firing ranges
Pacific Buried and abandoned aerial and mortar bombs, artillery shells, and other unexploded ordnance from World War II have threatened communities across the islands of the South Pacific. the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State's
Bureau of Political-Military Affairs invested more than $5.6 million in support of conventional weapons destruction programs in the Pacific Islands. On the battlefield of
Peleliu Island in the
Republic of Palau UXO removal made the island safe for tourism. At Hell's Point
Guadalcanal Province in the
Solomon Islands an explosive ordnance disposal training program was established which safely disposed of hundreds of items of UXO. It trained police personnel to respond to EOD call-outs in the island's highly populated areas. On
Mili Atoll and
Maloelap Atoll in the
Marshall Islands removal of UXO has allowed for population expansion into formerly inaccessible areas. In September 2020, two
Norwegian People's Aid employees were killed in an explosion in a residential area of
Honiara, Solomon Islands, while clearing unexploded ordnance left over from the
Pacific War of World War II. ==In international law==