News Service from House Harris

Qld: Army experts destroy old artillery shell

CAIRNS, March 31 AAP - Army bomb disposal experts have detonated a decades-old artillery shell found in a dry creek bed in far north Queensland.

Locals found the explosive at Silver Valley, west of Innisfail, last week and contacted police on Monday.

Army experts were called in and identified the device as a 25-pound artillery shell and destroyed it in a controlled explosion on Tuesday afternoon.

Senior Constable Simon Armstrong, from Mt Garnet police station, said the device had been washed up as a result of recent heavy rain.

He said the shell was probably a leftover from a World War II training exercise.

"This whole area used to be a training ground back in WWII so we get it on a regular basis people finding stuff like this," he said.