The boys did a great job going up there year after year cleaning it up..
nearly blew me up once, was coming back in an Islander and was one minute or two miles from joining on downwind on the coast at a thousand feet, when the mushroom cloud from the pile on the beach went up ahead of me. They were letting them go just using the flight schedule times. When I got on the ground I got the Army Demo lads to co-ordinate better with Flight Service with a two way link for the off schedule and charter flights as well..
Another time was watching a soccer match at the main ground, when we heard a bomb go off over behind the residential areas - a local on one side said 'Bomb', the one on the other side said 'Shell' - they were used to it and thought they could tell the difference.. someone had let a fire go in the long grass, which set it off.. used to happen every summer.. rarely anyone killed.
(Yes - Mortar, then there is a Shell and an American Grenade, a Shell, and a Japanese Grenade)
But.. still it does happen sometimes..
Postscript from The Solomon Star
Tuesday, 22 December 2009 13:53
THREE people were killed and two others injured in a bomb blast on Sunday in Yandina, Central Islands Province.
The incident occurred at a place called Levers Point, when the five were trying to extract powder from unexploded World War II bombs.
A Yandina resident Samani Ramo said two adults and a child were killed and two other children were critically injured and are admitted at the National Referral Hospital in Honiara.
“They set out in two canoes with fishing gears and cooking pots,” Mr Ramo said.
He said the pots were used to boil the unexploded bombs after which they would extract the powder.
He said the powder is normally brought to Honiara where it would be sold to fishermen.
“Some fishermen use the powder to make dynamite for fishing.”
Mr Ramo said they already boiled about five bombs and three were still boiling in a pot when the incident occurred.
“It was a separate bomb that suddenly detonated when one of them was fiddling with it.”
He said the blast ripped through the three, cutting off hands and legs.
The five are originally from North Malaita.