WW2 explosive detonated off Curium

A SECOND World War explosive was found and detonated in the sea along Curium beach near Limassol early yesterday morning.

The object – either a mortar shell or part of a rocket dating back to the Second World War – was discovered when a team of underwater archaeologists dived down in search of pottery.

The team from the London department of Antiquities was searching for the pottery in quite shallow water, around 10am, when they saw a “sharp metal object sticking up”.
They immediately notified engineers from the British bases who assessed the object and decided it was too dangerous to move because it was actually live.

Dennis Barnes, spokesman for the British bases, said there were not a lot of people on the beach at the time. The area was cordoned off before the engineers placed a small amount of PE4 plastic explosives on the object to detonate it.

The explosion was so small that the people on the beach watching the operation were disappointed because they didn’t see anything extraordinary. Barnes said: “It just looked as if a stone was dropped into the sea.”

He continued: “Nothing like that has ever been found along that stretch of beach before, it was never used as a range. A local fisherman said that last winter was quite bad and a lot of debris was washed up on the beach so it could have come with that.”

Experts will examine the object within the next few days to discover how it came to be in the Limassol vicinity so close to the beach. Identification will be made based on pictures of other Second World War ammunition found in the past.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.