Two climbers have been injured after picking up First World War munitions in an abandoned military position high up in the Dolomites of northern Italy.

The Spanish climbers, both 21, were at an altitude of around 9,000ft when they noticed an opening in the rock and ice.

Inside the cave-like emplacement, they found abandoned ammunition and ordnance, left over from fighting between Italian and Austro-Hungarian forces more than a century ago.

One of the climbers picked up some of the munitions and the object exploded in his hands, leaving both him and his companion injured by shrapnel.

Climate change is melting glaciers on the highest peaks of the Dolomites and revealing the remains of First World War battlefields, including abandoned military equipment and the skeletons of soldiers.

Austro-Hungarian soldiers in the Dolomites in 1916 credit: Getty

Hikers in the area heard the explosion and went to the climbers’ aid, calling the rescue services.

Alpine rescue volunteers reached them and treated their wounds before carrying them down the mountain on stretchers.

They were then taken to a hospital in the town of Trento.

Explosives experts from the paramilitary Carabinieri police cordoned off the area and will remove the remaining ammunition.

More than 750,000 Italian soldiers were killed on the Italian front, many of them amid the crags and ridges of the Dolomites.

The Italians and Austro-Hungarians engaged in fierce fighting in the mountains, with each side trying to gain advantage by constructing artillery posts, trenches and bunkers higher than the other.

To try to maintain discipline, Italian generals adopted the practice of decimation – the random execution of soldiers from units that retreated or protested the senseless slaughter.

The skeletons of two soldiers, believed to have been members of an Austro-Hungarian artillery unit, emerged from the ice in 2012.

They were found on the Presena glacier, not far from where the climbers stumbled on the ammunition.

The remains of an Italian soldier were found in 2017, also at around 9,000ft.