It’s not every day you unwittingly explode a giant bomb from World War II, but for the Polish navy, this is exactly what happened.
A huge World War II-era bomb has exploded after being discovered in a canal in Szczecin, Poland.
The bomb – which is the largest-ever discovered, weighing in at a staggering 5,400 kilos – was believed to have been dropped by the Royal Air Force during the last months of the war.
The Tallboy, also referred to as an “earthquake” bomb, was discovered just over a year ago at the bottom of the Piastowski Canal; however, it wasn’t until yesterday that Navy experts finally attempted to defuse it.
This was done using a method of remote deflagration, which involves heating an explosive until it burns away instead of detonating. Clearly, they were unsuccessful in their attempts, with the mission instead resulting in them unintentionally blowing up the bomb, which contained 2,400 kg of explosives, causing a massive plume of water to eject into the air.
#Tallboy, the largest unexploded #WWII bomb detonated💣
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Lt Cmdr G.Lewandowski, 8th Coastal Defence Flotilla: The deflagration process turned into detonation. The object can be considered neutralised, it will not pose any more threat to the Szczecin-Swinoujscie shipping channel. pic.twitter.com/xHkRzAaONn— Poland MOD 🇵🇱 (@Poland_MOD) October 14, 2020
“The deflagration process turned into detonation,” described Lieutenant Commander Grzegorz Lewandowski, stating the obvious. Luckily, he also confirmed that nobody was injured. However, the explosion was felt through the city of Swinoujscie and more than 750 people were evacuated from the nearby Piast Canal area, with a 2.4 km exclusion zone established.
The biggest WWII bomb ever found in Poland exploded underwater during an attempt to defuse it. For safety measures, more than 750 people were evacuated from the area. No one was injured in the blast. pic.twitter.com/GLMnwWlZvP
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) October 15, 2020
