A 1.8 ton bomb was found in the Rhine river inside the city of Koblenz.
It will be defused on saturday and 45000 people will have to leave their homes for basically all of saturday. Actually hospitals already started evacuating their intensive care units.
Koblenz is quite near to me (20 km).
More for example here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopi...erman-town.html

Bomb disposal is something normal in Germany, with about 5500 bombs found and defused each year, but the size and position of this bomb make it a bigger issue.

It's seems amazing to me that after all these years unexploded bombs are still being found.


Wheels

wheelsup, there's still a factory in Belgium expressly designed to dispose of WW1 chemical shells the farmers dig up.

You should check out Afghanistan when it comes to UXO! Russians mined the crap out of the place.

That's very interesting I didn't know that there was a specific factory for dealing with such ordnance.

I've also read that they still are finding ordnance from the Napoleanic wars but it still amazes me that it all hasn't been found by now.


Wheels

1.8 TONS ? Wow !

Sounds like the size of one of our Cookie bombs (~4000lb) that would have come out the back of a Lanc.

I'm curious as to the blast radius on a 1.8 ton bomb. Anyone venture a guess? 45,000 people sounds a bit like overkill but I guess it's better to err on the side of safety.

Yes it would be overkill but better safe than sorry Depends how tightly packed the area is with people i suppose but it sounds like they evacuated a very large area.

The amount of tallboys ( 12000 pound) that hit the Tirpitz ended up being three in total and maybe four over three operations with five or six near misses before she finally rolled over and sunk.Probably sinking through water and exploding underneath once penetrating the lake bed would have dissapated a fair amount of the energy i imagine.But still, pretty big bomb, and three tallboy operations to sink one ship.

The blockbuster (cookie) was a bit different than most bombs of the day though as something like 75% of it was explosive and it was a thin case bomb so for explosive to weight ratio she was a bit of a monster.Interesting fact, even the mighty Mossie could carry the cookie and they sometimes did two trips to Berlin in a night with them.Total war is a b/tch huh

Want to know about British aerial bombs?

http://www.wwiiequipment.com/index.php?o...;layout=default

Or a Halifax.

Bomb effect for the 4000lb (3200lb HE) bomb was considered to be total demolition within 120 ft, and significant visible damage to 265 ft
(Compared - a 2000lb bomb would demolish all within 54 ft and seriously damage within 118 ft). Crater ~40-50ft radius.

Obviously the overpressures involved would break some glass windows at much longer ranges, fragments of casing and secondary projectiles could travel a very long way and the blast would give some temporary ground movement to much greater distances (around 2" movement at 150ft, and the movement is roughly inversely proportional to distance for longer distances).

Another rule of thumb of 'factory type buildings' is that GP bombs damage/destroy 400-450 square yards of structure per ton, but the LC 4000lb is 'significantly better per ton'.

However - the same report indicates that 'demolition' only occurs within the structure hit, and doesn't transfer 'out' to nearby buildings even if they lie within the distance that the bomb can damage. Obviously this can only refer to major structural damage, and doesn't account for damage to roofing, windows or other blast sensitive elements.

Seems to be that the authorities are ensuring the entire possible blast damage area is cleared - but the likelihood of serious damage is low as the bomb is in soft river mud and not directly adjacent to structures (except possibly the quay-side/road?)

They get buried over the years these were in a river bank and were found with low water levels this Fall...There's gotta be thousands of American UXB's in Vietnam

..or a mossie

The Mossie had been already mentioned in a post.;)

Lol, sorry...i thought you were skimming

And the Stirling.

The Wellington was the first to carry the 'Cookie' operationally.

General Arnold was so impressed with the 4000Ib 'Cookie' that the American Ordnance Department organized production for the USAAF (MkV & VI) based on the British design information which was made available.

I had to evacuate various homes three times over the last 20 years during bomb disposals. Twice due to an RAF bomb, once due to a USAAF bomb.

My best friend works as a construction engineer and it's standard procedure in Germany to inquire about WW2 bombing attacks and possible duds prior to every major construction work.

Here is an article with a google.map showing the evacuation radius:
http://www.rhein-zeitung.de/regionales_a...rid,341006.html
BTW the evacuation will be Sunday, not Saturday as I first wrote. Still, they already started evacuating some hospitals and also a prison, as they can not evacuate it safely in one day. On Sunday there will be 2500 "officials" (police, firemen, THW, etc)

Here are some very good photos:
http://www.rhein-zeitung.de/fotos/bilder-regional_costart,1_mmid,10610.html#pic
1: The bomb under water (current situation)
2+3: Here you clear see the damm made from sand sacks that they will pump dry before defusing the bomb.
4: The same type of bomb, but in a museum
5: WWII
6: Again the museumn, which, BTW, is very good.
The explosive weighs 1.4 t of the 1.8 t
7 WWII
8: There is still ship traffic on the Rhine, so the
so called "water + ship agency" put a boat almost perpendicular in front of the bomb

Trains on both sides of the Rhine will also be halted.
These are one of the major train lines in Germany.
Everyone has to be out of the zone at 9:00, but the defusing only starts at 15:00.
The main guy that will defuse it has already defused several of them ("HC 4000 IV").

A few days ago they already exploded a fogcontainer
a few km away from Koblenz. At least 4 others are knwon and three of them will be exploded on Saturday.

On the 28.11. a bomb was defused in Spay, about 10 km away from Koblenz.

All of this is not so surprising, they say that the allied dropped about 2500 bombs onto each of the bridges around here. This shows how bad the accuracy of the allied bombers at the time was.

Another, although small bomb that had been dropped from a plane was found around 1500 meters from me (article in german):
http://www.rhein-zeitung.de/startseite_a...rid,341310.html

Thanks for the links Osram. Makes me wonder what the older couple closest to camera are thinking, they look very sombre.