17 May 2021

Second victim of WW2 shell explosion dies in Solomon Islands

3:42 pm on 17 May 2021

Another person who was injured in an explosion of a World War II shell in Solomon Islands last week has died.

Officers from the police explosive ordnance disposal team inspecting the remaining pieces of the WW2 US 105mm high explosive projectile that killed one person and injured three others in Honiara. May 2021

Officers from the police explosive ordnance disposal team inspecting the remaining pieces of the WW2 US 105mm high explosive projectile that killed one person and injured three others in Honiara. May 2021 Photo: Royal Solomon Islands Police Force

The National Referral Hospital confirmed to local media that Charley Noda died on Saturday night in the capital.

Noda was one of four people injured in the incident eight days ago.

They were part of a church youth group cooking food outdoors, who had unknowingly built their wood-fire over a buried 101mm cannon shell left over from WWII. The shell was detonated by the heat of the cooking fire.

A young civil aviation engineer, Raziv Hilly, died shortly after the explosion. He was buried on Thursday last week.

Charley Noda's wife, who was also injured by the blast, is still recovering in hospital along with another female victim.

With Solomon Islands seeing some of the most intense conflict in WWII, the country remains littered with bombs, with hidden munitions an ongoing threat across the country.

Last September, two members of a Norwegian NGO working on munitions recovery and disposal were killed when they removed ordnance into Honiara where they had been staying.