Plymouth bomb

[tomago]

Well done to the armed forces. They really are the best

👏👏👏

This isn't too far from me (but far enough not to have needed to stay elsewhere for the last few days)

And we had a government bomb alert thingy on our phones earlier. That made me jump!

https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/thousands-evacuated-unexploded-bomb-drama-3100496

Greetings from Cov...

We managed to cancel the opening night of a play about the Coventry Blitz by digging up a WW2 UX bomb next to the theatre!

Evacuation zone included two schools, two churches, a theatre, the fire station, tower block and a whole chunk of the city center shops etc....

Sympathies it's a bit shit isn't it...this one was blown up on site as it was too tricky to transport...There was another one the other side of the city center a few years later...Glad yours is gone safely too.

<waves to @TigerRag> . It's close to us, but luckily we didn't have to be evacuated either.

They had to evacuate 10,000 people in the end. 3,200 for 3 days and the rest all afternoon for the convoy.

I'm surprised how many people haven't heard what's going on.

I wonder how long we will be digging these things up for. It's kind of amazing really.

Was interesting watching the live updates on the bbc app and the tension of worrying about how it would go. Well done to them.

I'm in awe of how brave the people that transported it must be.

The news app said a few times at the end that the bomb was 'now in the sea', but it sounds like it's being towed further out to sea. So I assume they meant that it was now on some kind of vessel that is being towed out to sea with the bomb on it? Rather than that it was actually 'in' the sea at the moment.

I think it is supposed to be detonated tonight or tomorrow, depending on the weather. I wonder what sort of effects will be felt - they say a splash might be seen on the surface, but I wonder what sort of waves might be produced and how far away (if at all) those might be felt.

@Godivacrapname my DPs lived in a flat over the Belgrade in the 1950s. My dad wasn't evacuated add tells stories of playing on bomb sites as a kid, it's surprising, I'm here at all!

The bomb is in a yellow container that is being towed a fair way behind a very small RIB type boat (Sorry, I don't know my boats!). Apparently they will sink it and detonate tonight of tomorrow. Might be a bit of a splash but that's all. "Not like Hollywood", they said!

Here’s a photo of it being towed

@Godivacrapname

We've had three in recent years; the one you've linked to, which completely gridlocked the city, the one at the end of London Road where they did the controlled explosion on site and the other one. That was the one that somebody found in his garden and took to the police station on his bike! God knows how much other ordnance we have out there.

I wonder how many more there are un discovered

And of course well-done the police too...

It was my brother who dug it up! He sent a WhatsApp photo to us all saying he was going to report it because the curved end of it was appearing and he wasn’t sure. The police were there in minutes. We were all terrified for my niece and her neighbours because on Thursday she was told her house and two either side (at least) would be destroyed. They had an hour to empty it out. We all felt sick as my niece was so excited to get the house and the fear was that insurance wouldn’t pay. The guy next door was utterly devastated. So relieved it’s safely been removed. Proud of police, Army and Navy etc.

oh wow, how devastating that must have been for them - both scary from a safety point of view, but also knowing that your house might be destroyed and also that insurance might not pay. It would just shatter your world!

they did a great job managing to get it removed with no damage

@HedgehogB blimey!They were going to detonate it in situ??
I wonder how they worked out that they could move it ?
That footage of it on a lorry going through the streets was incredible .

Yes - on Wednesday and Thursday last week they were planning to detonate it where it was. Thankfully they changed tack - partly because they realised it was bigger than they thought and would do a huge amount of damage - 5-7 houses were thought would be destroyed. It was a frightening week, fortunately turned out ok. My brother could have been killed , no one knows how this bomb managed to lie there unnoticed, it was a foot or two down but there would have been an entry point back in 1941. They think the houses had been evacuated so no one noticed when they came back , maybe weeds grown over etc.

I've been looking at the online reporting - bit blown away.(see what I did there ).
What a huge operation
I hope the clean up will be funded by someone other than the owners.