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 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Perhaps another reason for the large area could be additional unknown bombs nearby that could go off if this one were to explode? I'm not a bomb expert, is that even a possible scenario?

That's actually a very good thought, too. About 70% of Frankfurt was destroyed, mostly by RAF/USAF bombing during the war, with probably some four-digit number of bombs dropped at least, so there's a good chance that this wasn't the only bomb that didn't go boom AND managed to stay hidden for a longer time. And I could imagine that specifically the larger bombs with their increased shock wave might cause enough of a rumble to maybe shift or rock other dormant bombs through the earth enough that their corroded fuses finally do what they were supposed to do.

Yeah, not the nicest thought. I'm sure EOD will do their job as well as they've done the last years though.

Edit: I was laughably low on my estimate, about 14,000 tons of bombs and explosives were dropped over Frankfurt, making it the 8th-largest bombing target in Germany during WW2. An estimate is that around 10% of bombs didn't explode on impact. The EOD has an official estimate of still "hundreds to thousands" in the area of greater Frankfurt. Of course many got defused over the years, the last one was a 100lbs bomb in January for Frankfurt, but by sheer statistics there's a good chance there's a few more buried nearby.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Perhaps another reason for the large area could be additional unknown bombs nearby that could go off if this one were to explode? I'm not a bomb expert, is that even a possible scenario?

With the amount of bombs put into German cities during WW2 your guess is not a bad one. Often smaller bombs but one this size could perhaps set off other unexploded ordnance. News of one being found might sound exotic in the US but it's an almost weekly occurence in Germany, despite it being over 70 years since.

Ultimately, I think the simplest explanation is that no one wants to be the person who said it was okay to stay and then gets a bunch of people blown up because something went wrong. Better to play it safe.

Hopefully they get the thing defused without any complications. It's crazy to think about how many 'leftover' explosives there must be lying around.

Just read an article in German featuring an interview with a private EOD guy, ex-military like most, now working in a 30-man company. He's saying they are called basically everyday, and every co-worker has something to look at, rule out, or identify and defuse every single day. And they are just working on a local level, other companies elsewhere are equally in demand.

Most interesting thing, they all do nothing but WW2 stuff, everything else is just so rare that it pales in comparison and it's rather handled by the odd police specialist unit flown in from somewhere.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Perhaps another reason for the large area could be additional unknown bombs nearby that could go off if this one were to explode? I'm not a bomb expert, is that even a possible scenario?

That's what I was thinking, also.

Something that wasn't in the original article but stated in a later one on Finnish YLE is that the bomb was damaged when the construction crew dug into it. Some explosives are exposed, making it imperative that it be disarmed quickly. That's surely also a good reason for massive evacuations.

Spetulhu wrote:
Something that wasn't in the original article but stated in a later one on Finnish YLE is that the bomb was damaged when the construction crew dug into it. Some explosives are exposed, making it imperative that it be disarmed quickly. That's surely also a good reason for massive evacuations.

Now the rush and massive zone makes more sense.

also why there going controlled explosion in a BBC report than disarm

Ok disarming... not controlled detonation

Just as a final update, the bomb is now defused. It was apparently quite complicated, because the bomb had three different fuses, and due to corrosion and age, the explosive capsules attached to two of the three fuses couldn't be detached as planned and had to be removed separately with extra care.

Respect to everybody who does a job like this every day, for years. Whew.

 zedmeister wrote:
Eh, sorry about that lads. Trigger happy and all that.

If it makes you feel any better, I had to leave my house a few years ago when they were digging in Coventry!

There around one every year in Coventry, with road closures and controlled explosions.
The last one was just next to the main ring road, so they have to build a wall around it to direct any blast if it blew.

There's also the matter of dust.

Don't forget the whole first responder respiratory illness crisis for the two towers; a bomb that could add an active lateral component of potentially asbestos filled building material in a poorly ventilated cityscape could do more damage than the explosives ;|

Having the place evacuated to prevent the first 30 minutes of potentially fatal exposure makes good sense.

In Italy situations like this one have been quite common in the last decades. Just a few years ago me and my family were evacuated from our home because local farmers that were working in their field found a WW2 bomb.


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 Grey Templar wrote:
A 3 kilometer evacuation area is total overkill, even for a bomb that size. But yeah, its a bit scary to have to worry about unexploded bombs.

In my case the bomb was certainly smaller that this one but still the radius of the evacuated area was essentially the same, like 2-3 km.

I guess evacuation zones also depend on whether the area is a dense cityscape or more rural. Shrapnel will probably fly quite a bit further in the countryside where it isn't blocked by some poor bloke's house right away.

 Witzkatz wrote:
Just as a final update, the bomb is now defused. It was apparently quite complicated, because the bomb had three different fuses, and due to corrosion and age, the explosive capsules attached to two of the three fuses couldn't be detached as planned and had to be removed separately with extra care.

Respect to everybody who does a job like this every day, for years. Whew.

Aye, if there's anyone who needs a kilt as part of uniform to to be comfortable it's these EOD teams.

And it's not like those big suits will protect you with one this size.

Somewhere in a civic authority building in Frankfurt.......
In 2017 lunchtime shift was beginning....

Kapitan: What happen
Mechanik: Someone set up us der bomme.
Operator: We get signal
Kapitan: Was!
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Kapitan: Isht you!
RAFS: How are you gentlemen
RAFS: All your reich are belong to us.
RAFS: You are on the way to destruction
RAFS: You have no chance to survive make your time.