Hundreds of World War I munitions exposed by melting ice removed from Dolomites

Key Points:

• Approximately 250 World War I-era munitions, including artillery shells and mortar bombs, have been removed from rapidly melting glaciers in Italy's Dolomites, specifically the Trentino-Alto Adige region.
• The munitions, dating back to the White War between Italy and Austro-Hungary (1915-1918), were uncovered by hikers, naturalists, and an incident involving a car accident, with the first unexploded shell found in June 2024.
• Specialized teams from the Julia Alpine brigade conducted a high-altitude clean-up operation between August and mid-October, navigating challenging and inaccessible terrain to safely remove the ordnance.
• The melting glaciers, accelerated by extreme heat and low snowfall in recent years, have exposed these hazardous remnants, prompting safety campaigns to advise the public against handling suspicious objects and to report them to authorities.
• The discovery has led to temporary closures of popular mountaineering routes, but these have since been reopened following the safe removal of the munitions.