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The project to exhume, identify and re-inter up to 400 British and Australian soldiers in France is in crisis after bad weather and the Department of Defence choosing a low-cost commercial archaeological firm.
Heavy rain and a lack of a contingency plan for toxic groundwater and drainage have upset the dig for the remains of 191 missing Australian soldiers near the site of the bloody Battle of Fromelles in World War I, Fairfax newspapers report.
Australian soldiers' remains were found in a field called Pheasant Wood, near Fromelles in northern France, which had been undisturbed for 91 years.
The commonwealth's Fromelles website, last updated on Tuesday, reveals only 24 bodies of an estimated total of up to 400 British and Australian soldiers have been retrieved in more than two months.
Work is due to end in September and the official re-interment is planned for a commonwealth military ceremony next year.
An emergency meeting was held last week in a bid to salvage the project and formulate a strategy to conduct DNA tests on the remains.
Due to time constraints archaeologists have taken the unprecedented step of casting aside the hand sieving of spoil from the graves for artifacts and personal effects.
