Explosive discovery

23 live aerial bombs found in a field

The aerial bombs that were uncovered on the property in Marchfeld weigh up to 100 kilograms.(Bild: EOD Munitionsbergung)

The remains of an old Russian training area hidden in the ground were uncovered in a field in Marchfeld. The war relics had to be defused on site.

The experts from EOD Munitionsbergung were called out to the Marchfeld for a highly explosive job in the truest sense of the word. They had to search a 130,000 square meter piece of agricultural land for war relics.

There are a lot of them there, as the area is not called a "bomb field" for nothing.

A total of four teams initially searched the 130,000 square meter area using special probing equipment.(Bild: EOD Munitionsbergung)

23 aerial bombs were uncovered.(Bild: EOD Munitionsbergung)

The yield was correspondingly large. Within two days, the 20 or so employees brought no fewer than 23 live aerial bombs to the surface. The unexploded bombs, some of which weighed 100 kilograms, were all defused by the demining service of the Austrian Armed Forces. "Such a large find doesn't happen often," says EOD Managing Director Stefan Plainer.

Dump training was commonplace in the post-war period. The Americans had such test sites in Upper Austria.

Stefan Plainer, EOD Munitionsbergung

But why are so many war relics found there? "This area is a bombing test site," explains Plainer. The Russians trained there in the post-war period. They set up training areas in fields in sparsely populated areas, usually close to an airfield.

"They also used these to train their pilots," says Plainer. The area searched is said to be only a small part of the area used for training purposes. According to Plainer, four Russian drop zones are known in Lower Austria.

In the past, unexploded bombs have repeatedly been uncovered in this region of the Marchfeld. It becomes dangerous when the bombs are buried relatively close to the surface because they could be triggered during plowing. "The area we probed is now safe," emphasizes Plainer.