This detonation was designed to be lethal to anyone in its immediate proximity, as well as being sufficient to destroy all materials in the cache.
From at least 1955 to the 1970s, such caches were allegedly pre-positioned in many countries — including locations in the United States[where?
][citation needed] and Switzerland — for planned terrorist and sabotage acts during the Cold War.
One such cache, identified by KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin, exploded when Swiss authorities fired upon it using a water cannon.
Although the explosion resulted in no casualties, the Swiss federal prosecutor at the time remarked, "Anyone who tried to move the KGB container uncovered in December of 1998 would have been killed.