WW2 bomb to be blown up as 1,200 homes evacuated

WW2 bomb to be blown up as 1,200 homes evacuated9 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleJonathan MorrisDevonRoyal NavyThe bomb was found on a building site in the Southway area of PlymouthA World War Two bomb discovered at a building site in Plymouth will be destroyed in a controlled explosion on Friday.More than 1,200 nearby homes have been evacuated as part of a 400m (1,300ft) exclusion zone around the site in the Southway area of the city.Col Nick Handy, the senior explosives officer leading the operation, said the 250kg German SC250 bomb could not be moved because its fuses could not be fully assessed.He said teams would be working through the night to put large quantities of sand around the bomb to "limit most of the damage" to the surrounding area.Col Nick Handy said he was pretty confident mitigation measures would limit damage from the bomb"A lot of people say 'Well it's been in the ground for 80 years, what's the problem with it?'" he told reporters. "The simple reason is, the fuses are the thing that makes it go bang."He said X-ray examinations had failed to give a clear picture of one of the fuses. "Unfortunately we cannot get a definitive X-ray of the second fuse and therefore it's not safe to move that item," he said. "So we're going to blow it in situ."The colonel said large quantities of sand were being used to build a structure around the bomb to limit blast and fragmentation during the explosion, and teams were working through the night to prepare the site."We're going to try our hardest to deflagrate that item and burn it inside of a structure that will limit the damage to the local surroundings," he said. "I'm pretty confident that the mitigation that we put up will limit most of the damage."He added: "We're going to work tirelessly through the night to ensure that that mitigation protects the buildings that face the site...