World War Two bomb found at BASF plant in Germany

The company said the bomb, found on August 4, had been secured and that it posed no threat to employees or the public


Reuters August 21, 2015
A picture of a WWII bomb found in Munich that was defused earlier in December. PHOTO: REUTERS

FRANKFURT: German chemicals firm BASF said on Friday that a World War Two bomb was found at its plant in Ludwigshafen and would be defused next month.

The company said the bomb, found on August 4, had been secured and that it posed no threat to employees or the public.

Seventy years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs are still found regularly in Germany. They are usually defused or detonated in controlled blasts.

Read: WWII-era bomb explodes in Germany, kills one

On January 3 2014, the driver of an excavator was killed and eight other people injured when a World War II-era bomb blew up during earthworks in Germany.

The blast wave from the sleeper bomb blew out the windows of surrounding buildings and could be felt for several kilometres, said police and residents.

Similarly, on February 26, an unexploded World War II bomb was found near Borussia Dortmund’s stadium on Thursday, forcing the Bundesliga club to shut down some of their operations.

Read: Dangerous WW2 bombs still litter Germany's landscape

Unexploded World War II ordnance is a relatively common occurrence in Germany where several million tonnes of bombs were dropped during the war by Allied and Soviet forces.

The city of Dortmund suffered extensive destruction during bombing raids.

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