Salvage Teams Still Collect Unexploded Shells At Verdun 100 Years Since WWI

VERDUN, FRANCE - AUGUST 26: Local farmer Francois Urvoy looks at an unexploded German 150mm artillery shell from World War I weighing 43kg he found and spray-painted pink as a team of mine-clearing specialists arrive in a field at Champneuville on August 26, 2014 near Verdun, France. Specialists Guy Momper and his colleague Raoul Weber are among a handful of men kown in French as "les demineurs" whose sole task is to collect munitions, mostly from World War I, still turning up throughout northern France, but especially between Verdun and the German border 100km away. Fighting around Verdun was particularly intense and it is estimated that millions of unexploded French and German shells are still strewn across the region. During the 10-month Battle of Verdun in 1916 artillery barrages in some areas were so intense that thousands of artillery shells fell on average per each square meter. Momper and his team of demineurs expect they and their successors will be collecting shells still for centuries to come. Europe has been commemorating the centenary of the outbreak of the war in 1914. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)