The Land Mine Pixies Are At It Again

There isn't alot of information available yet, but the discovery of several landmines hidden in a Canadian culvert is bad news no matter how you spin it. Thank God someone found them.

Landmines Found In Creek, The London Free Press
This mine, likely an anti-vehicle model, experts said, was found by two teens out with their mother and dog for a walk Friday. A bomb-disposal team found another nearby yesterday.

STRATHROY -- A country creek where children swim, fish and frolic was instead swarmed by police yesterday as Canadian Forces explosives experts detonated two live landmines. The mines, found in a culvert that runs under Inadale Drive between Strathroy and Mt. Brydges, appeared to have timers and were likely the type used to blow up tanks, Strathroy-Caradoc police say.

[...] The creek is popular with families, so police suspect the mines were put there to maim and kill, or in callous disregard of that possibility. .

Someone got their hands on really punishing explosive devices. Two of these mines were recovered near each other. Strathroy-Caradoc police Sgt. Mike Overdulve was interviewed for this story.

The potential for devastation was evident yesterday as a military team detonated the mines from a safe distance. The force of the blast ripped bark and limbs from a tree and sprayed water so high it could be seen by observers a kilometre away.

"I could feel the percussive force," Overdulve said, "It was 100 times louder than any fireworks you ever heard."

Seven centimetres thick and 25 centimetres in diameter, the mines appear to be the kind used to disable tanks.

"We can't definitively prove that, but that is the direction we are leaning," Overdulve said.

After the detonation, the explosives experts found debris "consistent with timers," he said.

I am a realist, not an alarmist, but who would have the motivation to do this? This incident occurred in Middlesex County, Ontario. It is north of Cleveland, Ohio on the Canadian side of Lake Erie and directly due east of Flint, Michigan.


Strathroy-Caradoc (Strathroy merged with the Town of Caradoc in 1998) is a small community of about 13,500 souls. The biggest thing that ever happened here was in 2004 when the train station was burned down. Some teens were charged with the arson. Because of Cuddy Farms, Strathroy favors the reputation as the turkey egg capital of the world.


Not exactly a terrorist hotbed.