A World War II-era bomb whose discovery prompted one of the largest peacetime evacuations in British history has been detonated at sea, the Ministry of Defense said on Saturday.
The 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) explosive was discovered Tuesday in the backyard of a home in Plymouth, a port city on the southwestern coast of Britain. More than 10,000 residents were evacuated to ensure their safety as a military convoy transported the unexploded bomb through a densely populated residential area to a ferry slipway, from which it was taken out to sea.
They usually are buried. Bombs were usually dropped from over a mile up. If the soil was soft enough, duds could be completely buried on impact.
The also used carpet bombing techniques. So if one bomb didn’t blow, the nearby explosion would help bury it and hide the soil disturbance.
They find these all the time in Europe.