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Hundreds of WWII Artillery Shells Found

A sapper removing one of the 916 World War II-era artillery shells recovered Wednesday during work on Prospekt Marshala Zhukova, in northwest Moscow. Locals said similar caches of arms have been found there for decades. Sergey Ponomarev

Hundreds of rusty World War II-era artillery shells were found beneath a road in northwestern Moscow, prompting the evacuation of dozens of people.

Sappers removed 916 field artillery shells of various calibers after workers expanding Prospekt Marshala Zhukova stumbled upon the cache. Residents of two nearby apartment buildings were evacuated immediately, and the road was closed to traffic.

At least 28 of the shells were armed, said Igor Chernego, chief of the district office of the Emergency Situations Ministry for northwestern Moscow.

But he downplayed the danger they posed.

The shells were loaded into trucks for safe disposal, said Major Sergei Novikov of the sappers unit.

The shells were destroyed at a Moscow airfield late Wednesday, Interfax reported.

Such finds are relatively common in Russia, which experienced some of World War II's fiercest battles.

Some residents at the scene claimed that the cache — which featured 76mm and 152mm shells — was part of a wider network of ordnance depots located in the area since the 1930s.

Zufiar Nurimanov, 72, who has been living in the area for nearly 40 years, said residents routinely found shells in the ground and some boys were killed while playing with them during Soviet times.

"Many children played with the ammunition, like throwing shells into the fire, and were killed," he said.

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