Projectile event in Manche, Pointe du Lude on the beach at Donville-les-Bains area, France on Mon 26th September 2022

On Monday 26 September, the Cherbourg demining divers group intervened at the Pointe du Lude on the beach at Donville-les-Bains to neutralise an explosive device. It had been discovered on Wednesday 21 September by Micha‘l Olivier, an amateur detectorist. "At the foot of the cliff, my device detected a metal object buried in the sand at about 30 cm. I quickly realised that it was an explosive device from the Second World War", he recalls. On the Donvillian coast, the deminers intervene three or four times a year. "There are blockhouses and it is not surprising to find ammunition," adds Micha‘l Olivier. The operation consisted of destroying the device by explosion. It took the team of five soldiers, composed of two managers, two operators and a medic, 90 minutes to locate and extract the shell before it exploded: "It was a French 75 mm shell. Because of the wind, we moved away from the coast to avoid projections towards the houses", the deminers analyse.