Italian army defuses 250 First World War munitions exposed by melting glaciers

Hikers’ sightings prompted a military sweep across the Trentino Alto Adige region

The Italian army has removed and neutralised 250 First World War explosives that emerged this summer from rapidly retreating glaciers in the Dolomites, according to its Julia Alpine brigade. The devices included Italian artillery shells and French mortar bombs conserved in ice for more than a century. The brigade recovered and made safe the material during an extensive operation in the Trentino Alto Adige region.

Some of the explosive devices had already exploded, but many had not, making their re-emergence dangerous to hikers and mountaineers. The operation followed several sightings reported by hikers during the summer, mostly around Canal San Bovo in the Primiero Valley in eastern Trentino. Soldiers then searched that area and other high-altitude and glacier locations across the Trentino Alto Adige region.

Among the 250 explosives were 18 Italian 75mm artillery shells and 37 Thevetot mortar shells. The brigade described the Thevetot as a French-made device that was also supplied to the Italian royal army during the First World War.

The munitions originated from the “white war,” fought between the Austro-Hungarian army and Italian troops across treacherous, bitterly cold terrain between 1915 and 1918. The fighting took place mainly in the Dolomites of Trentino-Alto Adige and the Alps of the Lombardy region.

“It is very much a consequence of global heating,” said Stefano Morosini, a professor at the University of Bergamo and the coordinator of heritage projects at Stelvio national park, where some of the explosives were also found. Morosini said: “In recent years, at the end of each summer, these dangerous artefacts emerge and each year there is a higher number. They have been conserved by the ice for more than 100 years. Some had already exploded but many hadn’t, so now when they re-emerge, they are very, very dangerous.”

Guidance for hikers and mountaineers said to “never touch any type of explosive device you might find, regardless of where it is located” and to promptly report any discovery to police. The latest recovery was not the first time retreating glaciers had exposed First World War relics. The Guardian reported that the glaciers’ retreat has accelerated over more than a decade.

The white war was largely frozen in time until the 1990s, when global heating began revealing an assortment of preserved relics, including weapons, sledges, letters and diaries. A wooden barracks dug into a cave atop Mount Scorluzzo, a 3,095-metre (10,154ft) peak overlooking the Stelvio pass, reappeared in 2015 after the ice that had sealed it for almost a century completely melted. The shelter had been hastily locked when the war ended in November 1918, and the soldiers abandoned most of their belongings. Inside, beds made of straw, clothes, lanterns, newspapers, postcards, coins and tinned food were preserved by the ice.

A white war museum is scheduled to open in Bormio in June 2027 to host the relics.

The white war is thought to have claimed more than a million lives, although most soldiers were believed to have been killed by avalanches, falls or hypothermia. Dozens of corpses, some still in uniforms, have emerged from the melting ice over the past 15 years. In 2017, relatives of an Italian soldier buried him after documents found with his body on the Presena glacier revealed his identity.

Morosini said intense summer heat was making access to the Dolomites glaciers less safe. Eleven people died when a huge mass of the Marmolada glacier broke off in 2022.

“It is becoming more and more impossible to access the glaciers during the summer because of the very long heatwave at high altitude,” he said. “If you come to the area, you can see how fast the glaciers are retreating and how strong the impact of climate change is.”