Polish Navy completed on Tuesday completed its mission to detonate the 5,4-tonne Tallboy bomb that had been sitting at the bottom of the Piast Canal in the town of Świnoujście. The operation was recorded by four video cameras.
The detonation was carried out after 1 p.m. on Monday. "The process of deflagration turned into detonation. The target can be considered neutralised, it won't pose any more threat at the Szczecin-Świnoujście water route" - said the spokesman for the 8th Coastal Defence Flotilla Grzegorz Lewandowski. This means that the plan to burn out all explosive material did not succeed and the bomb exploded.
The sappers, however, considered such eventuality and prepared for it. "All sapper divers were safe outside the danger zone" - Lewandowski said. Local residents were evacuated, no one was hurt. The spokesman did say whether any damage was done or not. He added that more details would be known after the divers have examined the site.
The video showing the detonation was published online by the Mayor of Świnoujście Janusz Żmurkiewicz.
Before the operation started, on Monday 751 people had to be evacuated from the area.
The operation to remove the unexploded bomb began on Monday morning. It was expected to take even up to five days. However, due to the Navy sapper divers' swift preparation of the crucial part of the mission - the neutralisation of the bomb - it could commence already after 1 p.m. on Tuesday.
Dubbed the "earthquake" bomb, the Tallboy bomb was used by Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) and weighed nearly 5,400 kg, including 2,400 kg of explosive, the Navy said on its Facebook account.
The bomb was found in the Piast Canal which connects the Baltic Sea with the Oder River, and was dropped by the RAF in 1945 in an attack on the German cruiser Lutzow.
The site is near the town of Świnoujście in northwest Poland where a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal was opened in 2016.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP, Reuters
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: Świnoujście City Hall