Seven dead after scrap metal workers cut open WWII bomb in Bangkok
At least seven people died and 19 others have been injured when a massive World War II bomb exploded at a scrap metal warehouse in Bangkok as workers tried to cut it open, officials say.
The 225-kilogram shell was found at a construction site by builders who then sold it to a suburban scrap metal merchant believing the bomb had been defused.
"The workers at the warehouse thought the bomb was no longer active so they used a metal cutter to cut into it causing the explosion," said local police commander Virasak Foythong, adding the ordnance was probably left over from the war era.
Tags
Who is online
320 visitors
This happens all to often now. WWII is a war from the past and people no longer think about all the duds and mis-fires that are out there just waiting to be found. The powder in these shell is now so old as to be very unstable, just the act of moving them can cause them to detonate.
That's just like pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger because "I think it's unloaded". Not the smartest move in the world.
Unexploded ordinance disposal units are still maintained in Germany, England and France, just to deal with stuff like that. They're still finding unexploded shells and bombs in Northern France dating from WWI. They're just as dangerous as they were in 1918, maybe even more so.
While I served in Germany I was assigned to the EOD (Explosives Ordnance Demolition) unit and every spring just as regular as clock work we would start receiving calls from the farmers for everything from small caliber weapons rounds to 2000 lb bombs and tons of land mines even grenades (mostly from the Germans theirs were very undependable). Every so often a farmer would hit one with his plow and it would detonate mst times killing the farmer.