An aerial World War II bomb partially exploded during an attempt to defuse it in the eastern city of Dresden. Bomb disposals are routine in Germany and rarely involve accidents.
Police released this photo of the Dresden bomb disposal site, shot from a helicopterImage: picture-alliance/dpa/Polizei Sachsen
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Demolition experts in the eastern city of Dresden successfully defused a WWII bomb on Thursday after initial efforts triggered a small explosion and a subsequent blaze.
An inconclusive defusing operation Wednesday set ablaze shock absorbent materials and left the 250-kilogram device obscured by rubble. To extinguish the blaze, experts used a special robot, supervised by helicopters and drones.
Police had earlier warned that the fire caused by the bomb partially exploding could lead to further blasts, with Dresden police chief Horst Kretzschmar saying the unearthed bomb had high explosive potential.
'It all looked normal'
"Now I feel better," said disposal expert Holger Klemig, who admitted at one stage on Wednesday his neck hair had stood on end.
"It all looked quite normal until the moment when we had a direct view of the detonator and noticed it looks somehow different than normal," said Klemig.
The leftover British device had been found during construction work on Tuesday, prompting evacuations from senior residents' homes and partial road, rail and aviation closures. On Wednesday evening, part of it exploded as experts were trying to get to the detonator. There was little damage, and no one was hurt.
Nearly 9,000 Dresden residents had to go to emergency shelters like this trade fair hallImage: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Halkasch
"At this point, we don't know what amount of explosives we're dealing with, and that's why the bomb remains extremely dangerous," police said during the defusal process.
Nearly 9,000 people in Löbtau, which is near the main station, had to be evacuated on Tuesday, spending two nights in a row away in emergency accomodation.
One veteran resident, Manfred Leuteritz, 91, said he had spent the two days well in improvised accommodation, but for some of his contemporaries the evacuation prompted traumatic memories.
"Wartime leaves no one alone," said Leuteritz, who in 1945 experienced the air raids on Dresden as a [German] soldier.
Unexploded ordnance in Germany - a legacy of the Allied Forces
Over 50,000 people were evacuated from the northern city of Hanover in May 2017, so that bombs from World War II could be defused. Even 72 years after the war ended, unexploded bombs are still found across the country.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/U.S. Strategic Air Forces
What is unexploded ordnance?
Unexploded ordnance (UXO or sometimes also abbreviated to UO), unexploded bombs (UXBs), or explosive remnants of war (ERW) are explosive weapons such as bombs, shells, grenades, land mines, naval mines and cluster munitions that did not explode when they were deployed. Unexploded ordnance still poses the risk of detonation, even decades after they were used or discarded.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Grundmann
Why does Germany have a bomb problem?
Between 1940 and 1945, US and British forces dropped 2.7 million tons of bombs on Europe. Half of those bombs targeted Germany. Experts estimate that close to a quarter of a million bombs did not explode due to technical faults. Thousands of these bombs are still hidden underground, sometimes a few meters down and sometimes just below the surface.
Image: picture-alliance/Everett Collection
How big is the issue?
The industrial Ruhr area and the Lower Rhine region were heavily bombed, as were the cities of Dresden, Hamburg and Hanover. So this is where most of the unexploded ordnance is found. Bombs are usually unearthed during construction work or are discovered during the examination of historical aerial images. Experts say it could still take decades to clear all of the remaining unexploded ordnance.
Image: Reuters/H. Hanschke
What happens when an unexploded bomb is found?
When confronted with the discovery of an UXO, UO or a UXB, bomb disposal experts have to decide whether to defuse it or to carry out a controlled explosion. Many have lost their lives on the job. German authorities are under pressure to remove unexploded ordnance from populated areas. Experts argue that the bombs are becoming more dangerous as time goes by due to material fatigue.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Puchner
How many bomb disposal experts have died?
Eleven bomb technicians have been killed in Germany since 2000, including three who died in a single explosion while trying to defuse a 1,000-pound bomb on the site of a popular flea market in Göttingen in 2010.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/U. Zucchi
Which was the biggest evacuation?
A 1.8-ton bomb dropped by Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) was found in the city center of Augsburg on December 20, 2016. The find prompted a large-scale bomb disposal operation and consequently the evacuation of over 54,000 people on December 25. To date, this remains the biggest evacuation for the removal of World War II unexploded ordnance in Germany.
Image: Markus Siefer
What’s the latest?
Authorities conducted another big bomb disposal operation in May 2017, with 50,000 residents in the northwestern city of Hanover forced to evacuate their homes. Thirteen unexploded ordnances from the 1940s were removed. Hanover was a frequent target of Allied bombing in the latter years of the war. On October 9, 1943, some 261,000 bombs were dropped on the city.
Image: Getty Images/A. Koerner
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City pummeled
Germany's eastern Elbe River metropolis was pummeled by Allied air raids in February 1945, killing up to 25,000 civilians as Hitler's Nazi regime crumbled.
Bomb disposals are routine in Germany and often involve evacuations. However, they rarely involve major complications. Bomb disposal experts can usually access the detonator, but in this current case, it was difficult to prise out, causing the explosion.
Dresden has seen its fair share of bomb disposals, as the city was heavily bombed by British and US forces towards the end of World War II on February 13, 1945.
