It is hard to believe those explosives are still active after a hundred years.
I have read that this type even happens just about every year maybe including WWII munitions.
There are accounts that trees in some areas of the western front had absorbed enough mustard gas that they would occasionally poison people trying to clear them some 50+ years after the war...
My father and uncles used to hunt gazelle in North Africa using leftover M1's and US Army jeeps, I knew a Frenchman whose playtime as a kid included restoring and firing machine guns left over from WWII in Normandy.
Germany and Eastern Europe are littered with Wehrmacht ammo dumps that were just covered with earth at the end of WWII. Every year, the German police bust individuals who have restored WWII weaponry they dug up-- one guy in Berlin a couple summers ago was trying to sell a 40mm Bofors AA gun in working condition with ammo.
Europe has very strict gun control laws, but I swear half the families have leftover ordnance from the World Wars stashed somewhere.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
My dad left me several boxes of 1954 Twin Cities Arsenal 30-06 ammo. It still shoots; I fired off a box last November. Properly stored it lasts a long time.
The problem with the old shells and bombs is that in the wild, the explosive actually becomes more unstable and dangerous over time.
Just d@mn!
The real bad ones are the poison gas shells. They say if you pick one up, even today, you can hear the liquefied poison gas gurgling inside.
He handed me a shell and cautioned, "Don't drop this".
Over the years he had pulled boxes and boxes of ordnance out of the ground in addition to musket balls, belt buckles, and buttons as well as knives, plates and other gear. He had a very healthy respect for the stuff which hadn't exploded 145 years before.