Hundreds of World War I-era weapons have emerged from beneath more than a century of snow and ice in Italy’s Dolomites as retreating glaciers expose the battlefield remains.
About 250 artillery shells, mortar rounds and other pieces of ammunition were found in the Trentino-Alto Adige region of northern Italy, according to the Italian army’s Julia Alpine Brigade. The elite unit specializes in mountain warfare and cold-weather operations, CNN reported.
The munitions date to the “White War,” or “Guerra Bianca,” fought between Italian and Austro-Hungarian forces in the Alps from 1915 to 1918. Hikers and mountain workers discovered the weapons near Canal San Bovo in the Primiero Valley, in eastern Trentino, according to The Guardian.
The first unexploded device found this year was a 90-millimeter mortar discovered in June after a car plunged down a ravine near Caldonazzo in the Valsugana area.
Firefighters working to remove the vehicle spotted the shell at the base of a tree and alerted a bomb disposal team, which safely removed it.
The Julia Alpine Brigade conducted a wider clearance operation from August through Oct. 16, completing the work before winter snowfall returned to the mountains.
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According to the brigade, the mission required “solid mountaineering skills” because teams had to reach “inaccessible areas, at high altitudes, and on particularly challenging terrain,” CNN reported.
Finding wartime munitions in the Alps is not unusual; remnants from both World Wars surface every year. However, exceptionally low snowfall in 2025, combined with this summer’s heat wave, has hastened glacier retreat and revealed more potentially dangerous weapons.
“It is very much a consequence of global heating,” Stefano Morosini, a University of Bergamo professor and coordinator of heritage projects at Stelvio National Park, where some of the shells were found, told The Guardian.
“In recent years, at the end of each summer, these dangerous artifacts emerge and each year there is a higher number … Some had already exploded but many hadn’t, so now when they re-emerge, they are very, very dangerous.”
Authorities are urging hikers and other visitors never to touch or move munitions they find. Instead, they should keep their distance and notify officials immediately.
