Sarah Njeri highlights how European wildfires are unburying and reactivating unexploded ordnance from World War I and II
European wildfires have revealed a potentially deadly threat of unexploded ordnance from World War I and II, as intense heat and drought conditions unbury and reactivate previously stable munitions. Sarah Njeri, a peace and conflict scholar at London's School of Oriental and African Studies, noted that climate change is now doing the work of unburying and reactivating what was previously stable. Explosions have been reported in France, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. In southwestern France, a massive wildfire outside Bordeaux uncovered a cache of World War II-era ammunition. In the eastern Belgian province of Liege, Gov. Hervé Jamar reported sporadic detonations and emergency services are adapting to account for buried munitions. Climate change is further revealing weapons through shrinking rivers and lakes. In Slovakia, the Danube River revealed two naval mines, and in Hungary, a bomb emerged from receding water in Budapest. Christina Greene, a researcher at the University of Arizona, stated that the legacy of war keeps creeping up due to climate change, reliving the legacies of war and conflict in the past few years.