WWI Shell Kills 2 in Belgium

Almost a century after the beginning of World War I, the conflict is still killing people. The latest casualties were two construction workers in Ypres, Belgium, who were killed when a buried shell or grenade exploded yesterday, reports Reuters. "It's a shell that exploded with four workers there, a conventional device from World War I. One died instantly, another on the way to the hospital," says the local police chief.

Another worker is in critical condition in the hospital and a fourth is in shock. The strategic city was shelled by German forces for most of the war and there are believed to be thousands of unexploded devices still buried in the area, the BBC notes. Belgium has removed some 629 tons of shells and other explosives from old battlefields in the last four years alone. (More World War I stories.)