The Guardia Civil, bomb disposal squad were called in to destroy a Spanish-Civil-War era hand grenade that had been discovered in a cave in Vélez de Benaudalla.

A potholer had come across this explosive device 80 metres below ground in a cave known as Sima Redonda on the 7th of March and immediately phoned the Guardia Civil.

The man had the sense not to move it but instead took a photograph and sent it to the Grupo de Especialistas en Desactivación de Explosivos belonging to the Guardia Civil.

Using the photo, the bomb disposal experts identified it as one that had been used by Republican forces. As it had been in a damp cave all this time it was very corroded by rust, so at first they just cordoned off the mouth of the cave because they required the help of the Guardia Civil Mountain Rescue (Grupo de Rescate e Intervención en Montaña) who are trained to operate in all kinds of terrain, including underground.

The next day, the Greim officers guided the explosive expert to the point where the hand grenade was. A close inspection showed that it was fully live. The last thing that they wanted was for it to go off whilst trying to move it down there, bringing the cave ceiling down on top of them. So using specialised tools they deactivated it.

Editorial comment: the source article (Ideal) didn’t explain exactly how they deactivated it – an explosion down there would have trapped the officers, yet the article does not mention a controlled detonation activated from the surface. It just says that they used, “método mecánico”

(News/Noticias: Velez de Benaudalla, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)