World War II bomb defused in Germany after mass evacuation

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

BERLIN (AP) — Two World War II bombs were successfully defused in the western German city of Dortmund on Sunday, hours after thousands of people were evacuated from the surrounding area, officials said.

The bombs were 250-kilogram (330-pound) American and British bombs. Authorities initially thought they had detected four bombs, but later clarified that only two were found.

Authorities had evacuated two hospitals and opened schools for residents who had to leave their homes. City officials had asked about 14,000 people to leave the areas where the bombs were buried.

The city’s train station had also been shut down and trains were rerouted. Before experts defused the two bombs, helicopters patrolled overhead to ensure everyone had evacuated.



A road is blocked with containers in Dortmund, Germany, Sunday, Jan. 12, 2020. Thousands of people are evacuating in the western Germany city of Dortmund as experts are getting ready to defuse up to four bombs from World War II. (Henning Kaiser/dpa via AP)


Read more: https://apnews.com/df762038f358373a18f84635594ba36b

[TeamPooka]

1. wow. still finding them after all these years

[getagrip_already]

2. yeah, and they will be finding them for centuries I suspect...

A lot of them probably just got covered over by new construction. If they aren't in wet ground, it will take a long time for rust to get them. Their are still water pipes in most cities that are over 100 years old.

But I have to wonder how explosive they are after all this time. After all, they blow up when dropped from a plane all those years ago.

I get the caution, I just wonder how dangerous they really are. I don't recall any stories of any actually going off accidentally. Farmers dig them up, construction crews uncover them, etc. No boom-boom.

[John1956PA]

5. In 2014, there was a fatality from the unearthing of a WWII bomb.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/01/world-war-ii-just-claimed-another-casualty/282805/

[sarisataka]

6. It is very rare

To hear an EOD specialist talking about his second mistake.

[sarge43]

11. Also Europeans are well aware there's still unexploded ordinance still lurking around

When discovered, they don't mess with; they call EOD and get out of the way.

Second mistake. The other one: Death is God's way of tell you you're in the wrong MOS.

[AtheistCrusader]

17. First mistake is someone elses problem.

[OnlinePoker]

15. There are parts of France from WW1's Battle of Verdun that are too dangerous to enter

Littered with unexploded shells, barbed wire and arsenic according to this article:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3125088/Inside-toxic-grave-longest-battle-history-French-forest-300-000-died-300-days-Battle-Verdun-littered-bodies-arsenic-unexploded-shells-grows-100-years.html

[melm00se]

18. Not just WWII ordinance

but WWI too:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ww1-century-munitions/100-years-on-buried-wwi-shells-pose-threat-in-french-fields-idUSKBN0G418Q20140804

[TeamPooka]

20. that's nuts

[melm00se]

23. They have something called the "Iron Harvest"

by French and Belgian farmers.

It is estimated that in WWI, there was 1 ton of explosives fired from every meter of Western front territory and that 300 million projectiles were duds.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Article is brief doesn't say manual or robotic defusion

Can't be too many personnel experienced in ordinance that old

[lordsummerisle]

4. k&r n/t

[sarisataka]

7. AP should have their reporters

Retake some math courses.

[krispos42]

13. Yup. It must have been a 500-pound bomb

227 kilogram, for the American-impaired.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

8. Oh, yes, there are still a lot of bombs out there.

You might want to read Aftermath: The Remnants of War: From Landmines to Chemical Warfare--The Devastating Effects of Modern Combat by Donovan Webster.

I seem to recall that one chapter is about unexploded ordnance from the Franco-Prussian War.

[sarge43]

10. Civil War ordinance is still found and some of it still dangerous.

It's estimated that 3 million tons of high explosives were aerial dropped during WWII. God can't count high enough to number the artillery shells that are still around, both world wars. If only one in a thousand dudded out, that's a lot of bad boys alive and well and living in sin.

[gopiscrap]

9. I remember when I lived in Frankfurt

and that happened once

[Foolacious]

12. 250 kg is NOT 330 lbs

It's 550 lbs.

[Kid Berwyn]

16. Good catch!

Editors these days...

[James48]

14. Thank goodness we don't have

Unexplored ordinance in most places in the USA.

My dear home of Michigan hasn’t been a battlefield since the War of 1812, although when I was a 6-year old child living close to the Detroit River, I DID find a German K-98 rifle hidden a couple of hundred meters from the river’s edge. Now I think it must have been hidden there during World War II, at a place where people could cross the river from Canada. But that’s as close as we ever got in my neighborhood to old arms or munitions being found.

Oh, and Indian arrowheads. I found several of those as a child as well.

[Maxheader]

19. Isn't that just something about wars?

They just keep giving and giving...See all the vets from the iraq invasion on tv appealing for donations to help
those with physical problems...mental problems...STill happening folks, thanks to the right wing #$^% that put these homicidal bastards in office...stupid homicidal bastards..

[BigOleDummy]

21. When I was stationed

in Kaiserslautern in the mid to late 70's me and some friends found some old machine gun bullets still in their links in the forest outside of town. We had kicked up some dirt as we were trying to find a place to smoke some hash lol. There were some potato masher grenades too but those were totally rusted through. The links and ammo though.... well, we were young back then so we wanted to see if they were still viable. Took some home (I lived on the economy) and pried open a bullet. Instead of gunpower there were 3 little strips/cords of ….. whatever it was. They fizzled when we lit them but didn't explode. This is/was in a highly traveled area but off the trail that was used for Volksmarsching and just general walks in the park.

[EX500rider]

22. In the late 70's I was exploring the WWII bunkers in the hills above Cherbourg in France..

...on the way back down I climbed a fence as a shortcut and when I got to the other side saw these signs on the fence!!