Since 11 September 2019 the divers of the Underwater Operative Group (GOS) of the Submarine and Incursor Command of the Italian Navy (Comsubin), posted at the SDAI (Sminazione Difesa Antimezzi Insidiosi) Nuclei of Taranto, La Spezia and Ancona have conducted delicate operations, respectively aboard a fishing boat in Mola di Bari (BA), in Bracciano Lake (RM) and in Lake Varna (BZ), aimed at removing and neutralizing over a thousand explosive devices dating back to world conflicts.
In Puglia, the Prefecture of Bari requested the emergency intervention of a GOS team to remove a moored naval mine dating back to the Second World War from the deck of the Aquila Reale motorboat and inadvertently sailed between the nets during a fishing trip.
The large bomb, after being delicately picked up by the men of the Navy, was towed to a security area identified by the local Maritime Authority and is waiting to be fired as soon as the marine weather conditions permit.
The activity took place on September 18 according to the established procedures aimed at preserving the marine ecosystem.
In the province of Bolzano, since the September 16, the eighth intervention of the SDAI Core Diver of Ancona is underway to continue to search for, identify and remove the explosive devices on the bottom of Lake Varna, thrown into the 1918 by the army Austro-Hungarian retreat. To date, 1.060 has already been issued with 1.056 rifle bombs and 4 smoke bombs that have been removed and handed over to the Army bomb squads and are added to the 11.421 explosive artifacts that were removed from the 2017, the year in which the operations began reclamation in the lake.
In central Italy, the GOS operators belonging to the La Spezia SDAI Unit intervened in Lake Bracciano on the recommendation of the Prefecture of Rome to identify an artifact attributable to an explosive device reported only at 1,5 meters in depth. The operations of the Palombari allowed to identify a mortar bomb and an armor-piercing bullet from 75 mm, which will be handed over to the army bomb squad.
The Commanders of the Navy's Demining Nuclei remind anyone who encounters objects that in shape and size may seem like an explosive device or parts of it, that these artifacts can be very dangerous. Therefore, the same 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 to restore the safety conditions of the our sea.
