WWII Bomb Defused in Germany - Updated




(Koblenz, Germany)

Explosive experts said they succeeded in defusing an enormous British World War II bomb and another, smaller American one nearby, after nearly half the people of Koblenz evacuated the city for the operation on Sunday.

Despite the rain which stymied plans some had to spend the day outside, officials said that the evacuation of around 45,000 people by 9 a.m. was successful. It was the biggest such evacuation in Germany since the war.

Some 2,500 fire, police, medical and technical personnel as well as city officials were involved in organising the evacuation. Around 1,000 people spent Sunday morning checking to make sure everyone had left the 1.8 kilometre exclusion zone by 9 a.m. local time.

Bomb disposal experts were able to begin their work on the massive British bomb earlier than expected - and once they had defused that one, then worked on a smaller but more unstable American bomb nearby. After they were successfully defused, a smoke bomb also found in the area was blown up in a controlled explosion, marking the end of the dangerous operation.

Sadly, approaching seven decades after WWII it's still a common occurrence to find unexploded bombs in Germany.

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WWII Bomb Forces City Evacuation
[Previous 11/30/11 post]
(Koblenz, Germany) Almost 70 years after being dropped, a large unexploded bomb has been found barely under the waters of the Rhine River.

The British WWII bomb discovered in Koblenz is causing an even bigger evacuation effort this week than when it and many others were dropped over the city in 1944, destroying nearly everything.

“Then people hid in their cellars. People were told to leave the city, but there was no organised evacuation, nothing like this,” Manfred Morschhäuser, of the city fire department told The Local.

“This is the biggest evacuation in Germany since the end of the war,” he said of efforts to move around 45,000 people from a 1.8 kilometre radius around the 1.8-tonne bomb discovered near the bank of the Rhine River.

Sandbanks are being erected around the site where the massive bomb, as well as a smaller one and a WWII smoke bomb were found thanks to the receding waters of the Rhine during this dry autumn.

People are being evacuated from hospital wards, jails and nursing homes. Fortunately, Koblenz residents are used to the drill. There have been localized evacuations from 29 bombs found in the last dozen years.