The summer period has just begun and, as usual, the number of emergency intervention requests to the Comsubin Operational Underwater Group (GOS) by the prefectures has increased, following reports of discovery of objects attributable to ordnance explosives.
Dozens of underwater mines, torpedoes, depth bombs and all sorts of bullets or bombs for land and air use have been removed from the bottom of Italian seas, lakes and rivers and have been neutralized according to the consolidated techniques used by divers to preserve the ecosystem marine.
In particular, in recent years there has been an impressive increase in occasional reclamation interventions which have led to the removal of over 44.000 war remnants from our coasts during 2018 and 18.806 during the first 6 months of 2019.
This phenomenon was probably determined by two factors: a higher sensitivity to denounce any findings at sea of anomalous objects due to some kind of weapon, as well as the spread and development of recreational diving, which brings more and more underwater enthusiasts even to considerable depths.
The task of intervening on explosive devices found in maritime contexts has been assigned to the underwater component of Comsubin since the dawn of its foundation and was recently reaffirmed with the 28 February 2017 Ministry of Defense Decree.
For this reason, the Comsubin Divemen face a tough training path that leads them to achieve, in Italy and abroad, numerous qualifications that allow them to intervene, as well as on war surplus, even on new concept explosive artifacts, or on those improvised, which are found in the water, in the living work of the Naval Units or in port infrastructures.
The reclamation interventions conducted this year have made it possible to restore the safety of bathing and navigation through a total of 445 days of underwater operations that were conducted in the seas, lakes and rivers of Puglia, Sardinia, Sicily, Liguria, Campania, Tuscany, Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Lazio, Lombardy, Abruzzo and Trentino Alto Adige.
These interventions were carried out by the operators of the Ready-to-Use Department and by those of the seven SDAI Nuclei (Demining Defense Antimezzi Insidious) located in La Spezia, Taranto, Ancona, Naples, Augusta, Cagliari and La Maddalena, all employed by the Underwater Operating Group by Comsubin.
It should be remembered during this holiday period that those who come across objects whose shape or size can be traced back to that of an explosive device, that these can be very dangerous and therefore must not be touched or tampered with in any way, but the discovery must be reported immediately to the local Harbor Master's Office or to the nearest Carabinieri station, so as to allow the intervention of the Comsubin divers in order to restore the safety conditions of our waters.
