Your Guide to Chemical Weapons in the Ocean

Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!

Chemical Weapons Map

The deadly poisonous gas of war, mustard gas, was first used by German troops in 1917. Even though it was quickly banned by the Geneva Convention in 1925, nations all over the world produced massive quantities of the deadly gas throughout World War II.

Mustard gas soaks through clothes and burns the skin, causing massive blisters to form under the armpits and groin.

As tensions cooled in the 1950s, countries had no idea how to dispose of their massive stores of chemical weapons, so they dumped them in the ocean.

This map shows where chemical weapons have been dumped into the ocean around the world.

You can even get more detailed information about the site by clicking on the icon.

Why the Ocean?

Scientists couldn’t find effective or inexpensive ways to disarm the gas. The ocean was a free place for the first world to dump its problems.

Experts estimate that a million tons of chemical weapons sits at the bottom of the ocean, and is still highly dangerous. As shells and barrels rust away, the deadly payloads leak out and have the possibility of causing massive environmental damage.

Militaries have made the task of cleanup even more difficult by classifying dumping sites or erasing evidence of where or what was dumped at all.

MINI BION
“BIONs” – short for Believe It or Not – is the word we use at Ripley’s to refer to anything that is unbelievable and worthy to become part of Ripley’s lore and collection.

Source: Your Guide to Chemical Weapons in the Ocean