Local killed while trying to obtain powder from 103-year-old cannonball in Turkey’s Çanakkale
ÇANAKKALE – Anadolu Agency
Kazım Perçin, 73, who was earning a livelihood as a fisherman, took the cannonball he found on a street in the central Erenköy neighborhood.
An explosion occurred while Perçin was trying to saw the Gallipoli War-era cannonball.
Perçin died due to the explosion, as buildings nearby were also damaged.
His body was taken to a forensic institute’s morgue for autopsy.
The explosion stirred panic among locals, as several gendarmerie officers and medics were dispatched to the scene.
The Çanakkale Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation into the incident.
Several ammunition and weapons buried underground have remained from the Battle of Gallipoli in March 1915, during World War I.
Turks mark what they call the Çanakkale War on March 18, when Ottoman forces repelled an Allied assault on the Dardanelles Straits. The victory stopped the Allies from taking Istanbul but resulted in an eight-month standoff.
Some 130,000 soldiers perished, 87,000 of them from the Ottoman side, before the Turks, under German command, repulsed an Allied campaign hampered by poor planning.