A World War II-era bomb whose discovery prompted one of the largest peacetime evacuations in British history has been detonated at sea, the Ministry of Defense said on Saturday.
The 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) explosive was discovered Tuesday in the backyard of a home in Plymouth, a port city on the southwestern coast of Britain. More than 10,000 residents were evacuated to ensure their safety as a military convoy transported the unexploded bomb through a densely populated residential area to a ferry slipway, from which it was taken out to sea.
UXOs are no joke. Imagine how long that was just sitting there before it was discovered!
This still happens with regularity in Japan. Cities that were firebombed but still have pre-war buildings that tend to be found to have undetonated incendiary bombs under the floorboards / in the garden / sitting IN STORAGE with junk that hasn’t been sorted through in generations…
Shit, when I was in college another school in the same state had to evacuate because someone brought what was believed to be a potentially still live civil war shell