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WARSAW: Navy divers began a five-day operation on Monday (October 12) to defuse the largest WWII unexploded bomb ever found in Poland, forcing more than 750 people to evacuate their homes. .
Nicknamed the “earthquake” bomb, the Tallboy bomb was used by Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) and weighs nearly 5,400 kg, including 2,400 kg of explosive, the Navy said on its Facebook account.
The bomb was found in the Piast Canal connecting the Baltic Sea to the Oder River, and was dropped by the RAF in 1945 in an attack on the German cruiser Lutzow.
The site is near the city of Swinoujscie in northwestern Poland, where a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal was opened in 2016.
“There will be no deliveries while the bomb is neutralized,” said a spokeswoman for the site operator Gaz-System, adding that the timing of the bomb’s deactivation had been agreed between the firm, the Navy and local authorities.
“We dug up the moving part of the bomb, the central part of the bomb was left, as planned, so that the debris around it kept the bomb in a fixed place, so that it would not move and the fuses would not trip”, Michal Jodloski, of the 12th Minesweeper Squadron of the 8th Coastal Defense Flotilla, told the private broadcaster TVN 24.
On Monday 751 people had to be evacuated from the area, local media reported.
“We are leaving for this week. We are scared. Children should go to school and have to go through it every day, so there is a bit of fear,” a local resident named Radoslaw told TVN24.
