Unexploded ordnance Unexploded ordnance ( or UXOs / UXBs , sometimes acronymized as UO ) are explosive weapon s ( bomb s , bullet s , shell s , grenade s , land mine s , naval mine s , etc . ) that did not explode when they were employed and still pose a risk of detonation , potentially many decades after they were used or discarded . In the United States UXO , as deﬁned in 10 USC 101 ( e ) ( 5 ) , is one of three categories of military munitions that may pose unique explosives safety risks that fall under the broader term " Munitions and Explosives of Concern " ( MEC ) . The other two categories of MEC are Discarded Military Munitions ( DMM ) , as deﬁned in 10 USC 2710 ( e ) ( 2 ) and Munitions Constituents or MC ( e . g . , TNT , RDX ) , as deﬁned in 10 USC 2710 ( e ) ( 3 ) , that is present in high enough concentrations to pose an explosive hazard . Unexploded ordnance worldwide . Unexploded ordnance from at least as far back as the American Civil War still poses a hazard worldwide , both in current and former combat areas and on military firing ranges . A major problem with unexploded ordnance is that over the years the detonator and main charge deteriorate , frequently making them more sensitive to disturbance , and therefore more dangerous to handle . There are countless examples of civilians tampering with unexploded ordnance that is many years old - often with fatal results . Believing it to be harmless they handle the device and it explodes , killing or severely injuring them . For this reason it is universally recommended that unexploded ordnance should not be touched or handled by unqualified persons . Instead , the location should be reported to the local police so that Bomb disposal or Explosive Ordnance Disposal ( EOD ) professionals can render it safe . Although professional EOD personnel have expert knowledge , skills and equipment , they are not immune to misfortune because of the inherent dangers : in June 2010 , construction workers in Göttingen , Germany discovered an Allied bomb dating from World War II buried approximately below the ground . German EOD experts were notified and attended the scene . Whilst residents living nearby were being evacuated and the EOD personnel were preparing to disarm the bomb , it detonated , killing three of them and injuring 6 others . The dead and injured each had over 20 years of hands - on experience , and had previously rendered safe between 600 and 700 unexploded bombs . The bomb which killed and injured the EOD personnel was of a particularly dangerous type because it was fitted with a delayed - action chemical fuze , which had become highly unstable after over 65 years underground . A dramatic example of MEC threat is the wreck of the SS " Richard Montgomery " off the coast of Kent , which still contains 3000 tons of munitions . When a similar World War II wreck , the Polish " Kielce " exploded in 1967 , it produced an earth tremor measuring 4 . 5 on the Richter scale . France and Belgium . In the Ardennes region of France , large - scale citizen evacuations were necessary during MEC removal operations in 2001 . In the forests of Verdun French government " " démineurs " " working for the " Département du Déminage " still hunt for poisonous , volatile , and / or explosive munitions and recover about 900 tons every year . The most feared are corroded artillery shells containing chemical warfare agents such as mustard gas . French and Flemish farmers still find many UXOs when ploughing their fields , the so - called " iron harvest " . Germany . Thousands of UXOs from the Second World War are still uncovered each year in Germany . The daily average is 15 , most of them aerial bombs . Concentration is especially high in Berlin , where also lots of artillery shell s and smaller munitions from the Battle of Berlin are uncovered each year . While most cases only make local news , one of the more spectacular finds in recent history was an American 500 - pound aerial bomb discovered in Munich on 28 August 2012 . As it was deemed too unsafe for transport , it had to be exploded in situ , shattering windows over a wide area of Schwabing and causing structural damage to several homes despite precautions to minimize damage . In 2011 , a 1 . 8 - tonne RAF bomb from in the Second World War was uncovered in Koblenz on the bottom of the Rhine River after a prolonged drought . It caused the evacuation of 45 , 000 people from the city and was called " the biggest bomb - related evacuation in Germany ' s post - war history " . One of the largest individual pieces ever found was an unexploded ' Tallboy ' bomb uncovered in the Sorpe Dam in 1958 . Laos . Laos has the dubious distinction of being the world ' s most heavily bombed nation . During the period of the American Vietnam War , over half a million bombing missions dropped more than 5 million tons of ordnance on Laos , most of it anti - personnel cluster bombs . Each cluster bomb shell contained hundreds of individual bomblets , " bombies " , about the size of a tennis ball . An estimated 30 % of these munitions did not detonate . Ten of the 18 Laotian provinces have been described as " severely contaminated " with artillery and mortar shells , mines , rockets , grenades , and other devices from various countries of origin . These munitions pose a continuing obstacle to agriculture and a special threat to children , who are attracted by the toylike devices . Some 288 million cluster munitions and about 75 million unexploded bombs were left across Laos after the war ended . From 1996 - 2009 , more than 1 million items of UXO were destroyed , freeing up 23 , 000 hectares of land . Lebanon . In the aftermath of the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon , it is estimated that southern Lebanon is littered with one million undetonated cluster bombs - approximately 1 . 5 bombs per Lebanese inhabitant of the region , dropped by Israeli Defense Forces in the last days of the war . United Kingdom . UXO is standard terminology in the UK , although in artillery , especially on practice ranges , an unexploded shell is referred to as a " blind " , and during the Blitz in World War II an unexploded bomb was referred to as a " UXB " . Most current UXO risk is limited to areas , mainly in London and Portsmouth , that were subject to the Blitz and to land used by the military to store ammunition or to train on . According to the Construction Industry Research and Information Association ( CIRIA ) , from 2006 to 2009 , over 15 , 000 items of ordnance were found in construction sites in the UK . Most notably , 1000 homes were evacuated in Plymouth in April 2009 when a Second World War bomb was discovered , and in June 2008 a 1 000 kg bomb was found in Bow in East London . CIRIA have now published " Unexploded Ordnance ( UXO ) - a guide for the construction industry " to provide advice on assessing the risk posed by UXO . The burden of Explosive Ordnance Disposal in the UK is split between Royal Engineers Bomb Disposal Officers , Royal Logistic Corps Ammunition Technicians in the Army , Clearance Divers of the Royal Navy and the Armourers of the Royal Air Force . The Metropolitan Police is the only force not to rely on the Ministry of Defence , although they generally focus on terrorist devices rather than unexploded ordnance and will often call military teams in to deal with larger and historical bombs . United States . As recently as December 2007 , construction areas outside Orlando , Florida discovered UXO in new development areas and had to halt construction efforts . Other areas nearby , including UXO in the Indian River Lagoon thought to be left from live bombing runs performed during World War II by pilots from nearby DeLand Naval Air Station , have long been avoided by local boaters for fear of accidentally striking UXO as they motor by . According to US Environmental Protection Agency documents released in late 2002 , UXO at 16 , 000 domestic inactive military ranges within the United States pose an " imminent and substantial " public health risk and could require the largest environmental cleanup ever , at a cost of at least US $ 14 billion . Some individual ranges cover , and , taken together , the ranges comprise an area the size of Florida . In addition to the obvious danger of explosion , buried UXO also entails the risk of environmental contamination . In some heavily used military training areas , munitions - related chemicals such as explosives and perchlorate ( a component of pyrotechnics and rocket fuel ) can enter soil and groundwater . A prominent example exists at Joint Base Cape Cod ( JBCC ) on Cape Cod , Massachusetts ( USA ) , where decades of artillery training has contaminated the only drinking water for thousands of surrounding residents . An expensive UXO recovery effort is under way there . UXO on US military bases has also caused problems for transferring and restoring Base Realignment and Closure ( BRAC ) land . The Environmental Protection Agency ' s efforts to commercialize former munitions testing grounds are complicated by UXO , making investments and development risky . UXO cleanup in the US involves over of land and 1 , 400 different sites . Estimated cleanup costs are tens of billions of dollars . It costs roughly $ 1 , 000 to demolish a UXO on site . Other costs include surveying and mapping , removing vegetation from the site , transportation , and personnel to manually detect UXOs with metal detectors . Searching for UXOs is tedious work and often 100 holes are dug to every 1 UXO found . Other methods of finding UXOs include digital geophysics detection with land and airborne systems . During World War I , the US Chemical Corps was established at American University , based in the University ' s McKinley Building . After the war , many toxic chemicals and weaponry were buried in or around the Northwest DC community where American is located . Excavations in the area are ongoing after significant discoveries were made in 2010 . Although comparatively rare , unexploded ordnance from the American Civil War is still occasionally found and is still deadly 150 years later . In 2008 , for example , Civil War enthusiast Sam White was killed when a naval shell he was attempting to disarm exploded . Detection technology . In cases of unexploded subsoil ordnance a remote investigation is done by visual interpretation of available historical aerial photographs . Modern techniques can combine geophysical and survey methods with modern electromagnetic and magnetic detectors . This provides digital mapping of UXO contamination with the aim to better target subsequent excavations , reducing the cost of digging on every metallic contact and speeding the clearance process . Magnetometer probes can detect UXO and provide geotechnical data before drilling or piling is carried out . Currently in the U . S . , the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program ( SERDP ) and Environmental Security Technology Certification Program ( ESTCP ) Department of Defense programs fund research into not only the detection , but also discrimination of UXO from scrap metal . Much of the cost of UXO removal comes from removing non - explosive items that the metal detectors have identified , so improved discrimination is critical . New techniques such as shape reconstruction from magnetic data and better de - noising techniques ( to name a few ) will prove invaluable to reducing cleanup costs and enhancing recovery . UXO or UXBs ( as they are called in some countries - unexploded bombs ) are broadly classified into buried and unburied . The disposal team carries out reconnaissance of the area and determines the location of the ordnance . In case it is unburied it may be dug carefully and disposed . But if the bomb is a buried one then it becomes a huge task . A team is formed to find the location of bomb using metal detectors and then the earth is dug carefully . Green ammunition . According to the US Army Environmental Command ( AEC ) UXO has accumulated from military training activities over the years at approximately 1 , 700 Formerly Used Defense Sites ( FUDS ) , 25 Base Realignment and Closure Commission ( BRAC ) sites , and a number of active installations covering millions of acres . By presidential executive order the US Armed Forces are mandated to buy " green ammunition " for use at their training ranges . Green ammunition is non - dud producing since they contain no explosives ( that is , other than the propellant ) and are non - toxic , reducing cleanup costs and environmental risks . Environmentally sound training rounds come in 5 . 56 caliber and 40 mm high and low - velocity training cartridges for grenade machine guns and under - barrel grenade launchers . Currently , the US army uses M918 40 mm cartridges , made to a pyrotechnic design from the 1970s that contains heavy metals in the fuze and potassium perchlorate in the payload . It has a fuze failure rate of 3 % - 8 % . The US Army continues to use the M918 and M385 cartridges , favoring a " mixed - belt " approach to reducing duds and toxic leaching ; however , the M918 cannot be used in dry weather because of potential range fires . US defense forces are now testing the 40 mm MK281 cartridge , Non - Dud Producing ( NDP ) and non - toxic training cartridge for the MK19 . In 2006 , the US Marine Corps signed a US $ 61 million 5 - year contract with the Rheinmetall Group . The National Training Center ( NTC ) in Fort Irwin , California is partially integrating the MK281 into its operations . The U . S . Center for Health Promotion and Preventative Medicine at the Aberdeen Proving Ground , Maryland approved the MK281 . Given that the military uses 6 - 10 million training rounds per year , this leads to a substantial amount of UXO , leading to mandates from the Department of Defense and Environmental Protection Agency to phase out this older training ammunition . This transition is dependent on the US military - industrial base becoming ready to design and manufacture necessary amounts of green ammunition . As of 2009 , there are no US manufacturers to provide the necessary supply of green ammunition , rendering the Department of Defense ' s mission to phase out older ammunition at odds with its second mission to buy designs and material from US suppliers . Many small US ammunition manufacturers , many associated with the rapid creation of WWII Army Ammunition Plants , have not invested in green ammunition R & D . " Green " also refers to the manufacturing process of ammunition . US Army programs at Picatinny Arsenal are researching methods of reducing volatile organic compounds and ozone depleting compounds during the manufacturing process . Attempts are also being made to reduce the amount of hazardous materials in the actual ammunition .