A specially built collection of houses, complete with crockery, refrigerators and double glazing, will be reduced to rubble tomorrow as part of an international trial to test the safe storage of high explosives.
Military researchers will detonate about 30 tonnes of high explosives in the South Australian desert, 27km north of Woomera - better known for its contentious refugee detention centre.
The tests are being carried out on behalf of military planners from Britain, Singapore, Norway and the Netherlands and are designed to assess how close ammunition and explosives can be stored to populated areas.
One of the houses is built in traditional Norwegian style, with a high roof and painted red walls. It is equipped with a fridge, wine glasses and a Baltic pine staircase - a bizarre sight in the middle of the desert. There are also Singaporean-style apartments, six commercial buildings, command and control structures, part of a field hospital, observation towers, vehicles and shipping containers.
'They don't have floor coverings, but basically they're houses you could move into tomorrow,' Bob McKenzie, the administrator of the Woomera prohibited area, said.
The explosives - about 1,600 20cm howitzer shells, supplied by the Dutch - will be buried in a concrete bunker covered by 5,000 tonnes of soil.