The Royal Navy is set to dismantle the masts from a sunken World War II wreck carrying 1,400 tons of unstable explosives, which sank off the coast of Kent in 1944.
The SS Richard Montgomery was a US Liberty Ship, which ran aground in August 1944, and despite frantic attempts to remove its deadly cargo, its hull cracked and sank off Medway in Kent.
It is now feared that an explosion could cause a 15ft high tsunami tidal wave and cause 'mass damage and loss of life', according to a new report by the Ministry of Defence.
Oo-er! I bet the TV rights are already being brokered...
A team of bomb disposal experts trained in specialist underwater demolitions will remove the ship's masts during a two-month operation, according to the The Daily Telegraph.
Or a two minute operation, if they get it wrong!
7 comments:
A large explosion might actually improve Sheerness
Jaded
Not only Sheerness, the tsunami would sweep up both the Thames and Medway, cleansing their banks of centuries of sprawl and detritus.
I've sailed out near to the ship many times - some it the clubhouse warned that it's dangerous to get too near, to which I replied, "We're already too near here if it explodes".
...and London!
I'm impressed by the way that the chemicals in these explosives are always ready to go and never lose any potency, even when they're described as "unstable" to start with and have been exposed to seabed conditions for almost 80 years.
On the flip side, the chemicals in a box of aspirin go horribly awry after only a year of being exposed to the harshness of my kitchen cupboard. I suppose it all averages out eventually... ;)
It could cause millions of pounds worth of improvements to Southend-on-Sea.
If the great Sky Doctor wanted to give the UK an enema, the Isle of Sheppey is the place that he'd insert the pipe ...
"I've sailed out near to the ship many times - some it the clubhouse warned that it's dangerous to get too near, to which I replied, "We're already too near here if it explodes"."
Oo-er!
"I'm impressed by the way that the chemicals in these explosives are always ready to go and never lose any potency, even when they're described as "unstable" to start with and have been exposed to seabed conditions for almost 80 years."
They built stuff to last in those days!
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