Fake amber on the Liepāja side

People who like to pick up larger and smaller grains of amber while walking on the beach sometimes make mistakes and pick up the amber counterpart washed away from the sea - white phosphorus. If it is placed in a pocket and allowed to dry, it ignites in the presence of air and leaves severe and difficult to heal burns. Both young children and adults suffer in this way. Both the residents of Liepaja and the surrounding area, as well as tourists from Western Europe and the former USSR. There is no shortage of burns and burnt parts of the body, just like doctors work in providing first aid. Where did this dangerous phosphorus come from in the vicinity of Liepaja?

In World War II, phosphorus was a common military substance that was widely used to refuel aviation fuel bombs. It was with these types of fireballs (and not only) that Allied aviation leveled Dresden with the February 1945 airstrikes. Eyewitnesses who survived said that even the street pavement burned from phosphorus fireballs scattered over the city. A similar fate befell other German cities, including Leipzig. The destructive power of the fireball was also enjoyed by the Japanese capital Tokyo when it was bombed by the US Air Force. Fire bombs were used by both warring parties in aviation strikes during the Second World War in the territory of Latvia, but there were no such mass strikes here. However, this was not the reason why a dangerous war substance appeared on the seashore.

In 1988, during the time of the USSR, the Baltic War Area Command issued an order to destroy about 500 phosphor aviation aviation bombs that had survived from the Second World War. According to the existing rules, such charges must be dismantled and remelted, but it was decided to make everything much simpler and faster - to blow them up. This was done at the Pape Aviation Target Landfill, which was located between Jūrmalciems and Papi and occupied an area of 5,000 ha. This area included both a dune area and the sea. Studies show that this campaign could contaminate a huge area of 1,600 square kilometers with phosphorus. No one can predict how long the sea will wash away this dangerous fake amber - probably even in the next hundred years, experts say. It is most often found on the beach between Bernāti and Liepāja. In the direction of Liepāja, the forged amber is washed away from the Pape side by the southern stream, which is decisive here. The burns that people get from fake amber are severe and very deep. A Belgian citizen has suffered as many as 12% burns. Tourists from Germany - a married couple who have suffered first and second degree burns. A little boy brought amber home, hid under a pillow, where phosphorus ignited and almost burned the whole house. And these are just a few cases, because no one has accurately listed for 20 years the victims who may have been overwhelmed by romantic sentiments to read amber, but encountered a dangerous war substance - white phosphorus, which was left here by the USSR army.