They Never Learn

[Jim O]

Three Ukrainians die in attempt to disassemble aircraft bomb

Deutsche Presse Agentur
Published: Monday September 11, 2006

Kiev- Three Ukrainians died after the aircraft bomb they were attempting to saw into pieces exploded, the Interfax news agency reported on Monday. The incident took place in Kirovo village in the southern Crimea.

The two men and one woman are believed to have been using a welding torch in an effort to remove the bomb's firing fuse, when the device went off, said Vladimir Ivanov, a Ministry of Emergency Situations official.

"It appears to have been an aviation bomb 1.5 - 1.7 metres long with a diameter of 35 - 50 centimetres," he said.

The bomb blew a metre-and-a-half crater in the yard of one of victims. Police were only able to find remnants of the victims' bodies, according to the report.

The blast "practically levelled" the three closest houses to the yard, and damaged twenty more houses in the neighbourhood.

Two children, both aged five, were inside one of the destroyed buildings "but survived by some miracle", Ivanov said.

The dead aged 36, 21, and 20 reportedly all lived on scavenging scrap metal. Neighbours said they had seen the two men deliver the bomb to the woman's courtyard by motorcycle some two hours before the explosion.

Metal collection is a common activity among the rural poor in Ukraine, where steel industry suppliers will pay ready cash without questions for scrap.

A criminal investigation into how the trio had come into possession of the weapon was in progress, Ivanov said.

A Ukraine army firing range was a the most likely source for the device, but the three may have unearthed a World War Two-era bomb in the vicinity, police said.

Ukraine's Crimea peninsula was the site of heavy fighting between Soviet and German forces from 1941-43. Unexploded bombs and artillery shells are uncovered regularly, sometimes with deadly results for the discoverers.

Source: The Raw Story

[Klaus]

Oh come on! How stupid do you have to be! With a torch?! You can't help some people...

[Tom Houlihan]

I'm sorry, but were those three named 'Bugs,' 'Daffy,' and 'Elmer?' That sounds so much like a Looney Toons cartoon, it's pathetic!

[Klaus]

If so they would have survived the blast.

[Lancer44]

Ukraine. Elderly farmer see that two of his neighbours are trying to cut large unexploded bomb with a hacksaw.

- Hey, stop it! This bomb will explode!
- Doesn't matter! We have a second one in a car!

Cheers,

Lancer44

P.S.

I said Ukraine, but it could be also todays eastern Poland. Amount of UO there is enormous, stupidity of the people almost equal with unemployment and many well preserved shells have copper rings, which fetch good money in scrap metal buying points.

[Klaus]

This is society for you. The selfpreservation instinct had to move for mass-stupidity.