LONDON (AP) — All flights in and out of London City Airport were canceled Monday after a 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) unexploded World War II-era bomb was found nearby in the River Thames.
The Metropolitan Police service cleared an area within 214 meters (700 feet) of the bomb, including several residential streets, as officers worked with specialists from the Royal Navy to remove the device.
Local officials offered emergency accommodations to residents, as the Newham Council local authority said work to remove the bomb would continue into Tuesday.
Police said the bomb was discovered Sunday at the George V Dock during pre-planned work at City Airport.
Airport CEO Robert Sinclair said he recognizes that passengers will be inconvenienced but said the airport is cooperating fully with authorities “to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.”
London City, the smallest of London’s international airports, handled 4.5 million passengers last year. It’s located in east London’s docklands, an area that was heavily bombed during World War II.
All sorts of dangerous WW2 relics are back in action, it seems.
Blast from the past. The estimated tonnage of unexploded bombs from WWII is staggering. They will be showing up for centuries. Some can be defused and removed while others have to be detonated in place. And some of them have been built over and are just there waiting for the cocked detonators to ping. Post WWII military ventures have left even more tons of exceedingly wicked inventory in SE Asia, Korea, and the Middle East.
How long will our country be digging out from Donnie’s unexploded ordinance, I mean Executive Orders…
Well, how exciting for everyone, and the police and navy, too! It’s just like an episode of MI5 where everyone get real serious looks on their faces and talk in an urgent monotone.
I wonder how the wh will manage to blame this on radical islamic terrorists.