(Granada, Vega) In the old days, los cortijeros would build their homes with anything to hand – even with unexploded, civil-war shells, it would seem.

The said shell had been stuck in the wall, wedged in under a roof beam, when the abuelo built the house; a sort of grim joke on his part, but when the granddaughter went around to the local Town Hall in Cogollos Vega to get a grant for doing the house up, the municipal inspectors probably didn’t see the ‘funny side’ of it.

[mappress]

So, the inspectors alerted the Guardia Civil, who stomped round, accompanied by bomb-disposal experts. They took one look at it and declared that the offending object was a vintage, 1930’s shell of the 75mm variety.

The problem was how to get it out? Banging around to break the wall wasn’t exactly the delicate approach, normally associated with handling aging artillery rounds. They decided to neutralise it with two controlled explosions.

It was necessary not only to evacuate the building and establish a security perimeter of 100 metres, but 30 neighbours were turfed out, as well.

The two small detonations separated the charge from the fuse, marking the artifact harmless. The charge was removed and the casing left in the wall, which a little the worse for wear…

(News: Cogollos Vega, Granada, Andalucia)