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World War Two bombs found on Galapagos Islands

QUITO | Wed Oct 27, 2010 12:33pm EDT

QUITO (Reuters) - Fishermen have found a dozen bombs believed to be from World War Two buried on the Galapagos Islands, a local government official said Tuesday. The bombs were found on Bartolome Island, one of the Galapagos group located about 600 miles off South America's northwestern coast.

The islands are a province of Ecuador, which let the United States set up a military base on one, Baltra Island, during World War Two due to its strategic location southwest of the Panama Canal. Luis Martinez, chief of operations for Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island, told Reuters that the bombs posed no danger to the public but that the Ecuadorean navy had been informed as a precaution.

"This military equipment that was found dates from the Second World War and was buried. It was not in sight of the beaches, nor close to them," Martinez said. He said the authorities were considering making a more thorough search of the area on Bartolome Island in case there were any other wartime explosives to unearth.

The volcanic Galapagos Islands are visited by thousands of tourists from all over the world every year thanks to their vast array of native species, many of which are endangered. British naturalist Charles Darwin developed his evolution theory in the 19th century after studying the wildlife there.

(Reporting by Santiago Silva; Writing by Daniel Wallis; editing by Jim Marshall)