Thursday October 31, 2024, big scare for a family from Sommepy-Tahure. Around 4:30 p.m., a father alerted the firefighters by telephone. Her child has just brought home an object that is not insignificant: a grenade.
A munition discovered with his comrades, near the Navarin site, where the First World War ossuary monument is located. Immediately, not having knowledge of the exact state of the object, a system was put in place with the firefighters, the gendarmes who were alerted, as well as the mine clearance services. They were finally able to recover the grenade without incident.
850 interventions for the mine clearance service in 2023
A century after the First World War, this type of intervention remains frequent in the territory, which has experienced successive conflicts, having left some traces. In 2023, the mine clearance service, which depends on the General Directorate of Civil Security and Crisis Management (DGSCGC), has in fact recorded 850 interventions, of varying scale, for nearly 28 tonnes of munitions recovered and neutralized. .
In the Marne where part of the front was based during the Great War, it is still possible to find grenades, shells, mortars, etc., in nature. Objects that are sometimes still active and potentially dangerous because they have been degraded by time. And this, despite the various decontamination operations carried out regularly over the years.
At the end of last year, one of them took place on the Navarin site itself, as part of the restoration of the monument, along the RD977, between Sommepy-Tahure and Souain-Perthes-lès- Howl. A team from the private company Berengier Dépollution had turned over the ground in order to dig up and neutralize unexploded ordnance. Between October and December 2023, no less than 210 munitions dating from 14-18 were unearthed there. Recovered, they were then “destroyed by the Civil Security military unit”then specified Stéphane Cherruau, site manager at Berengier Dépollution, one of the few companies in France specializing in pyrotechnic depollution.
Despite this type of large-scale action, carried out by specialists, certain munitions that fell outside the checked areas can still be discovered accidentally, as was the case for these teenagers in Sommepy.
“Do not approach, touch or move”
It is then important, in the absence of knowledge of the state of the object, if it is neutralized or still active, to alert professionals. The line to follow is as follows, as the head of the demining center based in La Veuve recalled last January, following the discovery of a 37 mm shell in the woods to the west of the department: “ Do not approach, touch or move » so as not to take any risks. “ When it is in nature, you must leave discreet markers on site to easily find them and then call the police, police or gendarmerie, or the mayor. » Only deminers are then authorized to handle this type of war object, defused or not.
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