[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help] 

Status: Not Logged In; Sign In

Cash Jordan: ICE Raids Home Depot... as California Collapses

Silver Is Finally Soaring: Here's Why

New 4um Interface Coming Soon

Attack of the Dead-2025.

Canada strips Jewish National Fund of charitable status

Minnesota State Rep. Vang just admitted that she is an ILLEGAL ALIEN.

1100% increase in neurological events since the roll-out of Covid mRNA

16 Things That Everyone Needs To Know About Violent Far-Left Revolution In Los Angeles

Undercover video in Arizona alleges ongoing consumer fraud by Fairlife

Dozens arrested after San Francisco protest turns violent Sunday

Looking for the toughest badasses in the city (Los Angeles)

Democrat Civil War Explodes: DNC Chair Threatens to Quit Over David Hogg

Invaders waving Mexican flags, pour onto the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles

Australian Fake News Journo Hit By Rubber Bullet In L.A. Riot

22-year-old dies after being unable to afford asthma inhaler

North Korean Bulsae-4 Long-Range ATGM Spotted Again In Russian Operation Zone

Alexander Dugin: A real Maidan has begun in Los Angeles

State Department Weighing $500 Million Grant to Controversial Gaza Aid Group: Report

LA Mayor Karen Bass ordered LAPD to stand down, blocked aid to federal officers during riots.

Russia Has a Titanium Submarine That Can ‘Deep Dive’ 19,700 Feet

Shocking scene as DC preps for Tr*mp's military birthday parade.

Earth is being Pulled Apart by Crazy Space Weather! Volcanoes go NUTS as Plasma RUNS OUT

Gavin, feel free to use this as a campaign ad in 2028.

US To Formalize Military Presence in Syria in Deal With al-Qaeda-Linked Govt

GOP Rep Introduces Resolution Labeling Free Palestine Slogan as Anti-Semitism

Two-thirds of troops who left the military in 2023 were at risk for mental health conditions

UK and France abandon plans to recognise Palestinian state at conference

Kamala Backs LA Protests After Rioters Attack Federal Officers

Netanyahu's ultra-Orthodox partners move ahead with Knesset dissolution plan

Former Prime Minister of Ukraine: Zelensky will leave the country


History
See other History Articles

Title: Half a German city evacuated after two-ton 'Blockbuster' RAF bomb is found at the bottom of the Rhine
Source: Daily Mail
URL Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art ... lockbuster-RAF-bomb-Rhine.html
Published: Dec 2, 2011
Author: Allan Hall
Post Date: 2011-12-03 13:22:38 by X-15
Keywords: None
Views: 121
Comments: 3

Almost half the German city of Koblenz is under evacuation orders as experts prepare to defuse a two-ton ‘Blockbuster’ RAF bomb in the Rhine.

The 10ft bomb, one of the biggest in the wartime arsenal of Bomber Command, was discovered after 65 years when the river level dropped during the driest November on record.

The fuse is badly corroded, and the authorities are evacuating 45,000 of Koblenz’s 120,000 population to leave a security zone of a mile around the bomb - which is capable of destroying an entire city block.

The evacuation - the biggest in German postwar history - will involve fleets of buses and 1,000 volunteers helping police and firemen.

It is due to take place on Sunday so as not to disrupt Saturday Christmas shopping.

Some 700 patients at two hospitals will have to be moved, as well as the residents of seven old people’s homes and prisoners in a local jail.

The city’s main train station will also have to be emptied as well as several hotels.

Authorities this week built a temporary dam of some 350 sandbags around the bomb which is covered by just 16 inches of water.

The plan is then for bomb disposal teams to pump the water out and get to the bomb proper to begin the delicate job of removing the detonator.

It is expected to take several hours to make the bomb safe. Should it show signs of going off, experts (??)

The low level of the Rhine has already exposed four other unexploded bombs. Police closed a road and a stretch of railway near Rhein bei Vallendar near

Koblenz on Saturday so that three smoke bombs found in the river could be blown up.

An artificial traffic jam was created on a nearby autobahn to slow traffic while the explosion work was underway.


Deadly: 'Blockbuster' bombs were used heavily by the RAF in the war, with 50 per cent of their weight being explosives

Fire department boss Manfred Morschhäuser told the German news agency DAPD said the area will be pumped free of water at the weekend so the bomb can be detonated.

In the meantime, the fire department has established a telephone hotline.

Morschhäuser said: 'Several hundred callers are getting in touch each day with their questions and problems.

'Each household included in the evacuation will be notified via flier.

'And on Sunday we'll go ringing from house to house.'

A day later and just a few kilometres downriver in Neuwie a 500-kilo aerial bomb was spotted in the river. This required the evacuation of around 1,000 people living in the nearby area.

Koblenz was a German operations centre during the Second World War and was hit repeatedly by air raids carried out by RAF and U.S. bombers.

While it had heavy industry producing ball bearings and tank parts, it was also the home of Army Group B which oversaw the conquest of France.

Later in the war the city was the hub for defensive operations for German forces following D-Day. Eighty-seven per cent of Koblenz was eventually destroyed in more than two dozen air raids.

German newspaper The National reports 'an estimated 2,000 tonnes of American and British aerial bombs and other munitions are still found every year.'


Koblenz in western Germany, population 120,000, was a hub for defence operations for German forces following D-Day (3 images)

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest

#1. To: X-15 (#0)

Should it show signs of going off,

I think when it shows *signs* of going off, it'll be a little too late....

Pinguinite  posted on  2011-12-03   18:06:49 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: Pinguinite (#1)

deleted

The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832

Eric Stratton  posted on  2011-12-03   20:39:11 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: All (#0)

Massive WWII bomb succesfully defused in Germany

BERLIN (AP) — A massive British World War II-era bomb that triggered the evacuation of about half of the 107,000 residents of Germany's western city of Koblenz was successfully defused Sunday, authorities said.

It was one of Germany's biggest bomb-related evacuations since the war ended with some 2,500 police officers, firefighters and paramedics on duty across the city to secure the operation.

Experts successfully defused the British 1.8 ton bomb and a 275-pound U.S. bomb that had been discovered last month after the Rhine river's water level fell significantly due to a prolonged lack of rain, said Heiko Breitbarth, a spokesman for Koblenz's firefighters.

“With the exception of Whites, the rule among the peoples of the world, whether residing in their homelands or settled in Western democracies, is ethnocentrism and moral particularism: they stick together and good means what is good for their ethnic group."
-Alex Kurtagic

X-15  posted on  2011-12-04   13:02:04 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest


[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help]