A weapon from seven decades ago created a crisis in France this week. A team digging out a new metro line in Rennes, France, found an enormous 250kg bomb from World War II lodged in the ground near City Hall. Over 3000 people had to evacuate their homes.
According to mayor Nathalie Appere, a bomb squad successfully defused the device, which had 70kg of explosives still inside. The people ordered to evacuate a perimeter of nearly 300m are now able to go home, safe from this particular munition but now aware of one of the scariest legacies of WWII: An untold number of bombs lie dormant and scattered throughout the continent.
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Germany is basically a terrifying graveyard for Allied bombs; just last August Frankfurt Airport had to delay flights after someone discovered an undetonated explosive. And in 2011, over 45,000 people had to evacuate after a 1.6-tonne bomb was found in the Rhine River. All in all, over 1800 tonnes of old bombs are discovered in Germany every year.
To make matters worse, the bombs get harder to defuse as they degrade with age. While deaths from these relics of warfare are rare, they’re not unheard of-an excavator died in Germany earlier this year. If nothing else, it’s a grim reminder that violence can linger in unintended ways. [AFP]
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