Poland: 5,000 kg bomb explodes underwater

Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country located in Central Europe. Recently, efforts to dislodge and neutralize a bomb submerged in a channel near the Baltic Sea were made.

The bomb, tagged to be “Tallboy” and also known as an “earthquake bomb” — was dropped by the Royal Air Force in an attack on a Nazi warship back in 1945 during World War II.

Last year, some officials found the device buried at a depth of 12 metres (39 feet) with just its nose sticking out during dredging close to the port city of Swinoujscie in northwest Poland.

Not one, but many such explosives have been located in that particular area and rendered safe by the authorities without any specific harm to life. This in itself is not an unusual occurrence because as recognized by Piotr Laskowski, “During World War II, Swinoujscie — at the time Swinemuende, a part of Germany — was home to one of the German navy’s most important Baltic bases and was subjected to massive bombardments.” The advance of the Red Army was held back by the ship’s canons during the last days of the war.

In any case, neutralizing the bomb was declared a delicate and sensitive task right from the beginning, reports having announced that the smallest vibration could send it off.

There are a few methods to deal with this problem, first, to efface the danger if an explosion occurs, and with it injuries, by demolishes the nearby bridge that connects the channel to the populated areas. However this was not the chosen method by the authorities to diffuse the bomb.

The method they chose was Deflagration, which would burn through the explosive charge instead of causing an explosion, thus effectively neutralized. Yet, the deflagration attempt instead went south and turned into a detonation.

The nearby residents had already been moved to a sports hall where they were provided shelter during the operation.750 local residents had been urged beforehand to evacuate from an area of 2.5 kilometres (1.6 miles) around the bomb, though some had told AFP they would be staying put.

Halina Paszkowska, a local inhabitant, had said that the “main danger” for her was the risk of catching Covid-19 in a sports hall where residents were given shelter during the operation. “I’ve lived here 50 years and there have been other bombs, but this is the first time there’s an evacuation! Before, we just had to stay indoors,” she informed.

Maritime traffic too had to be brought to a halt around over a radius of 16 km around the site where these events took place.

According to official statements, there had been no risk whatsoever to the locals since the very beginning, their temporary displacement being just a safety measure.

Tallboys were originally developed to fulminate and explode underground near a group of targets standing in hostile territory, triggering shock waves that would then cause mass destruction, wiping out these enemies.

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