Retreating Dolomites glaciers give up hundreds of unexploded first world war munitions

Rapidly shrinking glaciers in the Dolomites have exposed a large store of unexploded first world war bombs this summer, the Italian army has said. Soldiers from its Julia Alpine brigade collected and defused the devices, which included Italian artillery shells and French mortar bombs, according to an army statement.

The munitions date from the white war, the fighting between Austro-Hungarian and Italian forces that unfolded across dangerous, freezing mountain terrain from 1915 to 1918. More than 100 years later, the ice is giving them back.

Hikers reported several sightings of bombs over the summer, mostly around Canal San Bovo in the Primiero Valley, in eastern Trentino. The soldiers then carried out a wide sweep of that area and of other high-altitude and glacier sites across the Trentino Alto Adige region of the Dolomites.

In total they recovered and neutralised 250 explosives. The brigade said these included 18 Italian 75mm artillery shells and 37 Thevetot mortar shells, a French-made weapon that was also supplied to the Italian royal army during the war.

This is not the first time relics of the conflict have surfaced as glaciers melt, a retreat that has sped up over more than a decade. Stefano Morosini, a professor at the University of Bergamo who coordinates heritage projects at Stelvio national park, where some of the explosives were also found, called it "very much a consequence of global heating". He said more of these dangerous objects appear at the end of each summer, and in rising numbers. Preserved by ice for over a century, some had already detonated, but many had not, making them "very, very dangerous" now that they are exposed.

Hikers and mountaineers are advised to "never touch any type of explosive device you might find, regardless of where it is located" and to report any find to police promptly.

The white war was fought mainly in the Dolomites of Trentino Alto-Adige and the Alps of Lombardy. Its legacy stayed frozen until the 1990s, when warming began to uncover well-preserved relics such as weapons, sledges, letters and diaries. In 2015, a wooden barracks dug into a cave on Mount Scorluzzo, a 3,095-metre (10,154ft) peak above the Stelvio pass, reappeared once the ice that had sealed it for almost a century melted completely. Soldiers had locked it up in haste when the war ended in November 1918 and left most of their belongings. Inside were straw beds, clothes, lanterns, newspapers, postcards, coins and tinned food, all well preserved. A white war museum to house such relics is due to open in Bormio in June 2027.

The conflict is thought to have cost more than a million lives, though most soldiers are believed to have died from avalanches, falls or hypothermia. Dozens of bodies, some still in uniform, have emerged from the ice over the past 15 years. In 2017, relatives of an Italian soldier were able to bury him after documents identifying him were found with his body on the Presena glacier.

Morosini said intense summer heat is also making the glaciers less safe to reach. Eleven people died in 2022 when a huge mass of the Marmolada glacier broke away. "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."