Ploughers narrowly miss explosives

Cameron McBeth had a close call when his rotary hoe hit a box of explosive gel. Photo / Sonita Chandar

Two Dannevirke men are lucky to be alive after finding live explosives buried in the lawn.

Bruce Jones and Cameron McBeth had a close call when a munitions box containing nine tubes of power gel, a box of detonators and an old knife was discovered while they were using a rotary hoe on a property on Kumeti Rd.

The rotary hoe missed the box of detonators by half an inch, the men say.

"If the rotary hoe had caught the small box, it would have been game over," they said.

When Mr Jones, who owns the Kumeti Rd property, decided to regrass the lawn next to his house, he called on family friend Mr McBeth whose parents own a contracting business.

Mr McBeth arrived with the tractor and rotary hoe and started ploughing. Without realising it, Mr McBeth stopped about a foot away from the munitions box which was buried close to a fence, and changed direction. Turning around and ploughing in the opposite direction saved both of their lives.

If Mr McBeth had continued in the original direction, he would have hit the detonators which would have exploded the gel.

As he was making the pass, the rotary hoe threw out an object which the pair thought was a stone.

Mr Jones picked up the plastic bag containing the box and was swinging it around when he said to Mr McBeth "look what I've found". Mr McBeth jokingly replied "oh you found my old toolbox".

Mr Jones moved away and tried to open the box.

"I couldn't get it open because it was quite mangled from the rotary hoe so I stood on it," he said. "When I opened it, I saw an old knife sitting on top and a few tubes of power jelly (plastic explosive) which I thought were empty because they looked quite flat. I knew what it was as soon as I opened it but I wasn't worried at the time.

"We didn't know what to do or who to call so we rang the council. We had just hung up from them when the police called us. We described what was in it and they said move it away and don't let anyone near it."

It was only when Constable Matt Brooking from the Dannevirke police arrived that Mr Jones noticed the small box of detonators.

"The box had 'do not store with explosives' written on it. It was then I walked away from it," he said.

Bomb disposal experts from Wellington were called in.

"They arrived about 4pm and were quite excited by the find. They emptied the box and took it out into the paddock about 200m away. They added an extra 200g of plastic explosives to make sure the job was going to be done properly and set it off by remote."

Mr McBeth said when the explosives were detonated, all that could be seen was the smoke and a flash and then a loud bang.

"But you really felt it. Even from where we were standing, you could feel the shockwave go through you."

Constable Brooking said there was no way to trace where the explosives came from. "It is hard to know how long they have been buried but the guys are lucky. It was a close call."