At least four people have been injured by a bomb which exploded during construction work near a train station in Munich, Germany. The bomb is described as an “old aircraft bomb” and was almost certainly a leftover from World War II. The severity of the injuries is unclear but the station itself, one of the busiest in the country, was not badly damaged and has been able to resume operations following a brief delay and a limited evacuation.
Bomb detonated during drilling
The reportedly 550-pound bomb was accidentally detonated during drilling work at a construction site for a new train line about a half a mile away from the station.
Authorities said that the existing tracks were not damaged by the blast, though commuters could see a large plume of smoke rising from the nearby site.
Germany is very conscious of the threat of unexploded ordinance being uncovered during construction work and sites are generally checked very closely.
The interior minister for Bavaria said that there would be an investigation carried out to find out how this bomb managed to go unnoticed before the hazardous drilling began.
Unexploded bombs and shells from the world wars are still routinely uncovered in European countries which were hosted the fighting.
England, France, and Belgium all have areas which are particularly prone to ordinance being found during farming and construction work but Germany has an exceptional challenge.
World War II explosives still major problem for Germany
During the allied bombing missions of World War II millions of tons of bombs were dropped on German cities with the aim of crippling infrastructure and breaking the morale of civilians.
An estimated 15% of these bombs did not explode on impact. In some cases these undetonated explosives may be lying as much as 20 feet underground.
Thousands of tons of buried explosives are found in Germany each year, sometimes prompting massive evacuations when they appear in densely populated areas.
These bombs are still killing and injuring people nearly eight decades after the end of the war and they will likely continue to do so for decades to come.
