Bomb disposal: Explosive growth in scrap yard’s income

Several dozen tonnes of missiles have been discovered in a scrap yard in Russia’s Astrakhan Region. The dangerous metal is believed to have originated from a notorious local military base.

On Sunday, Astrakhan’s police officers have found a large number of missiles and their fragments in a local junkyard. Some reports suggest that several missiles were live and dangerous.According to different estimates, there were from 30 to 50 tonnes of both live and exploded ammunition.However, a spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Astrakhan region, Peter Rusanov, said that there were no live missiles, only empty shells with explosive residue.The investigation into the details of how the missile parts ended up scrapped is underway. The primary lead suggests that the fragments of the missiles were collected from a local military base, Alushuk, which had permanently been used for ammunition disposal for the last year.The police have found the culprits who delivered the salvage to the scrap-yard. But there is still no information about the charterers of their KAMAZ truck, where explosive residue has also reportedly been found.The notorious Alushuk base often hits the headlines, with a number of dangerous and lethal accidents happening there. Ten people have died there since the beginning of this year.As recently as August 23, six Russian soldiers were killed and 12 more wounded as a blast rocked the compound during the unloading of explosive cargo.