Navy rids Solomons of WWII explosives

The Australian navy has rid the Solomon Islands of a large quantity of explosive ordnance left over from World War II.

In the waters off the island of Malaita and in Shortland Harbour, off Shortland Island, the mine hunters HMAS Gascoyne and HMAS Yarra pinpointed 15 explosive objects on the seabed.

Navy clearance divers then located and disposed of the ordnance, which ranged from artillery shells through to a large British sea mine.

This was the latest deployment in what's called Operation Render Safe to help Pacific region nations remove explosive remnants of some of the bloodiest battles of World War II.

The Australian Defence Force has been involved previously with explosive ordnance disposal in the South Pacific but Operation Render Safe is the first continuing operation of its type.

"The ADF's previous involvement with the removal of unexploded ordnance was on a case-by-case basis such as operations conducted in the Marshall Islands and Kiribati," chief of joint operations command Mark Evans said.