Danes destroy ‘last landmine’

DENMARK has declared itself free of Second World War landmines after its transport minister detonated what is believed to be the last of more than a million planted by Nazi occupiers.

Henrik Dam Kristensen exploded the mine on the Skallingen peninsula, 200 miles west of Copenhagen, yesterday.

Adolf Hitler’s troops planted around 1.4m mines on the Jutland peninsula to deter an Allied invasion. Most were removed after the war, but 11,000 remained to be cleared.

Many of those mines are believed to have since been washed out to sea or destroyed by erosion.