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60,000 Germans Evacuate While Officials Try To Defuse a WWII Bomb (abc.net.au)
More than 70 years ago the UK's Royal Air Force dropped an 1,100-pound bomb on Germany. They just found it. An anonymous reader quotes ABC:
Residents in two German cities are evacuating their homes as authorities prepare to dispose of World War II-era bombs found during construction work this week. About 21,000 people have been ordered to leave their homes and workplaces in the western city of Koblenz as a precaution before specialists attempt to defuse the 500-kilogram bomb on Saturday afternoon (local time). Among those moved to safety are prison inmates and hospital patients. Officials in the financial capital Frankfurt, meanwhile, are carrying out what is described as Germany's biggest evacuation. Frankfurt city officials have said more than 60,000 residents will have to leave their homes for at least 12 hours.
Failure to defuse the bomb could cause a big enough explosion to flatten a city block, a fire department official said. "This bomb has more than 1.4 tonnes of explosives," Frankfurt fire chief Reinhard Ries said. "It's not just fragments that are the problem, but also the pressure that it creates that would dismantle all the buildings in a 100-metre radius"... Police will ring every doorbell and use helicopters with heat-sensing cameras to make sure nobody is left behind before they start diffusing the bomb.
Reuters notes that every year Germany discovers more than 2,000 tons of live bombs and munitions, adding "In July, a kindergarten was evacuated after teachers discovered an unexploded World War Two bomb on a shelf among some toys."
Failure to defuse the bomb could cause a big enough explosion to flatten a city block, a fire department official said. "This bomb has more than 1.4 tonnes of explosives," Frankfurt fire chief Reinhard Ries said. "It's not just fragments that are the problem, but also the pressure that it creates that would dismantle all the buildings in a 100-metre radius"... Police will ring every doorbell and use helicopters with heat-sensing cameras to make sure nobody is left behind before they start diffusing the bomb.
Reuters notes that every year Germany discovers more than 2,000 tons of live bombs and munitions, adding "In July, a kindergarten was evacuated after teachers discovered an unexploded World War Two bomb on a shelf among some toys."
is it a 500kg bomb or is it a 1400kg bomb... you cant have a 500kg bomb containing 1.4Tonnes of explosives...
Now kiddz repeatz afterz meez... this is a a bomba... b o m b a
No touchy!!!!
Capatca: aliens
Somebody set up us the bomb!
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
They should have thought of that ~80 years ago.
Or, is does metric throw that off and maybe just a half tonne?
SCHNELLLLLL
This happens all the time, no big deal unless you are directly involved. News worthy is it goes off or if it was rare to find unexploded ordnance in former war zones.
one 500kg bomb in Koblenz, and a second 1.4 ton bomb in Frankfurt. (Bad title by editor... saying one bomb.)
"In July, a kindergarten was evacuated after teachers discovered an unexploded World War Two bomb on a shelf among some toys."
When I was a kid in the 1970's California, we had to build our own pipe bombs.
There are two bombs, and TFA confuses them a bit. There's a 500 kg bomb in Koblenz, and a 1,800 kg aerial mine in Frankfurt. Which, obviously, is the one with 1.4 tonnes of explosives.
Looks like it isn't just Hollywood trying to turn old franchises into blockbusters this year.
...a second 1.4 ton bomb in Frankfurt.
Someone put a bomb in someone's hotdog?!
That's what happens when you upset the Brits. Keep it in mind during the Brexit negotiations: it happened when you Krauts became too uppity, it can happen again.
Haha! "...diffusing the bomb." Get rid of it by spreading it in the air? Abruptly, or gradually?
"Police will ring every doorbell and use helicopters with heat-sensing cameras to make sure nobody is left behind before they start diffusing the bomb."
I hope it is defused and not diffused
Twinstiq, game news
There was a live piece of ammo in my neighbors garage when I was six years old. It was about 50 mm in diameter and I picked it up to look at it. I found a live round in the desert near a former aircraft firing range that I took and soaked in water for two days, then wrapped in wet paper and put in the trash. Me and my dad found some blasting caps in an abandoned trailer at the Hauser geode beds, we threw one into our campfire and it blew all the wood 2-3 feet away. He threw them into San Diego bay on his way to work on a ferry.
The bomb is a British Blockbuster - so called because one could flatten an entire city block.The bombs are the origin of the term..
They were giant cylinders filled with explosive,with no streamling and no tailfins. When dropped they tumbled randomly through the air so there was no kind of accuracy with them. Dropping one on anything smaller than a city was pointless. Essentially they're weapons that were purpose-designed to be dropped on cities and to kill civilians.
Especially when either some guy with a whip and a fedora hat is involved ... or the bomb squad!
Defusing it would be preferable.
"Police will ring every doorbell and use helicopters with heat-sensing cameras to make sure nobody is left behind before they start diffusing the bomb."
If they are not careful, they will indeed diffuse the bomb. I hope that they defuse it instead.
-- Insert witty one-liner here. --
This is a stupid question, but is there something you could do to scan for these? e.g. use something like a hand-held metal detector, but bigger? Something you can put on a plane and fly over an area? I would think that these kind of unexploded bombs would have been made similarly, and from the ones they've defused in the past they would probably know what they look like. So is there anything that they could do to detect those?
Funny. I remember when people use to say the same thing about slashdot.
If they haven't gone off by now, they're probably duds.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
All 1800Kg unexploded Blockbusters so far:
The practice is indefensible, regardless of what you think of the point of view of the people you are dropping the bombs on. What you are engaged in is justifying an immoral act by saying the other guy is worse. You're still immoral for defending the practice. Blowing up little children because their parents might be Nazis is bullshit and I hope that in your heart of hearts you know that.
Don't you mean defusing the bomb?
To diffuse it would be to scatter it, as in blowing it up - I thought they were trying to prevent that.
"Police will ring every doorbell and use helicopters with heat-sensing cameras to make sure nobody is left behind before they start diffusing the bomb.". Diffusing?
You folks better upgrade your lingo. The media is lying to you like usual. These are Islamic terrorist bomb threats.
US Armed Forces HQ in Frankfurt was pretty much build around the bigger bomb.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.