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Language: en

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This is the Thames Estuary. It's a busy shipping
lane,

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carrying everything from small pleasure boats
to massive container ships

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between the London docks and the English Channel.

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Overhead is an approach path for some of London's
air traffic.

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But right there, in the middle of the Estuary,
two miles offshore:

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there are 1,400 tonnes of unexploded bombs.

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In 1944, the SS Richard Montgomery was transporting
munitions for the US Air Force.

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She was moored here for the night,

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and a combination of bad weather and bad decisions

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meant she ran aground on the sandbank out
there.

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The weight of the bombs broke the ship in
two,

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and it's been sitting there ever since

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as the tide digs a little crater around it.

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Some of its cargo was cleared away, but not
enough.

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If the worst happens, it would be one of the
largest non-nuclear explosions in history.

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Seriously. As a comparison, the Russian army
has tested something

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nicknamed the Father of All Bombs,

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which is the equivalent of 44 tonnes of TNT.

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This boat has 30 times that.

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There's an exclusion zone around it, of course,

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marked out and listed on charts.

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Occasionally some jackass will paddle up to
the masts and pose for a photo,

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but let's be honest, if years of storms and
shifting sands haven't set it off,

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that probably won't either.

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So what are the risks? Well, no-one's entirely
sure. That's the problem.

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No-one knows what the conditions inside the
ship are.

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And there's no research on what seawater does
to bombs over more than half a century.

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They should be fine: they're in clear, cold
water.

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And while the TNT itself doesn't degrade,

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its fuses will have worn away. Which would
make it safe,

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if it weren't for the 2,500 cluster bombs
on the deck above

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which could fall down on it,

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and which might have a slight tendency to
unexpectedly degrade and explode

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even though they're not armed.

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Possibly. Depending on who you believe.

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So should something be done?

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The Coastguard, along with the Receiver of
Wreck,

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the wonderfully-titled British civil servant
in charge of this sort of thing:

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they publish regular reports on the ship,

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based on sonar and laser scans and occasional
dives.

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The consensus view is that it's safe,

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but steadily degrading as tide and time take
their toll.

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It's probably fine to do nothing. And trying
to clear it,

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moving all that volatile material, well,

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that could be a much, much greater risk to
life,

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let alone an enormous expense. And if it did
go up,

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perhaps the water would contain most of the
explosion. But no-one's certain.

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There are some extremely vocal people,

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most of whom live near the thing,

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who say the risk of leaving it is too great:

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the worst-case scenario is that, suddenly,

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there's one nudge by a wave in the wrong place
at the wrong time --

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and the equivalent of a small nuclear bomb
goes off, taking out the nearby towns

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-- and the nearby liquid gas storage --

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first with a blast wave and then an actual
wave.

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This ship isn't just interesting because of
what it contains.

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It's interesting because it's an unknown.

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There are risky things like this all over
the world,

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but generally we can quantify them,

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we can say it's a one-in-a-million chance.

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But this is a risk that it's impossible to
put a number on,

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or say anything other than, yeah,

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it's probably going to be fine.

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Doing nothing is probably the right thing
to do,

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and that's what the government's going to
do.

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But we don't know it's the right thing to
do, not for sure.

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The only way to know is to wait and see.

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And maybe buy some good insurance.

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"Small, far away! Small, far away!

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"Father Ted reference, Google it."

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