Wartime Bomb causing Disruption at Exeter 27 February

[InOban]

I heard on the news that there was some structural damage.

 

[swt_passenger]

Interesting point made in some of the reports that they dig trenches around the site to try and reduce the effect of shocks travelling through the ground.

 

[DarloRich]

@Cowley - i think you might need ot retreat to minimum safe distance!

glad everyone is ok

 

[edwin_m]

All good .
I just had to drop one of the girls off to work and the cordon was still in place, I’ve also just realised that I know a family that live in the estate in the background of the photo here, going to try and get hold of them later and see if there was any damage to the houses.

View attachment 91546

I take it that photo was one of those fashionable ones where they hold the camera at an angle, and the house in the background is actually vertical...

 

[Cowley]

@Cowley - i think you might need ot retreat to minimum safe distance!

glad everyone is ok

It’s fine. I’ve got a sturdy hat...

Devon Live reporting some damage to property, which I guess is why people aren’t being let back yet.

When residents can return home after WW2 bomb detonated

The police are inspecting the cordon zone this morning

www.devonlive.com

"Residents should not return to their homes until further notice."

The police added that some buildings, mostly those within 100m of the bomb, have suffered some damage: "Including blown-out windows and cracks in brickwork”.

I take it that photo was one of those fashionable ones where they hold the camera at an angle, and the house in the background is actually vertical...

Who knows what it looks like now!

 

[richw]

Devon and Cornwall police have now said due to structural damages and surveying of all buildings within the cordon residents are unlikely to be able to return home today (Sunday)

 

[Cowley]

Devon and Cornwall police have now said due to structural damages and surveying of all buildings within the cordon residents are unlikely to be able to return home today (Sunday)

Oh dear. It’d be pretty awful wondering what you’ll eventually be getting home to.

 

[Elecman]

Damages Claims forwarded to the German Government?

 

[swt_passenger]

Damages Claims forwarded to the German Government?

Doubtful. They’d just send all their far bigger claims our way...

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Damages Claims forwarded to the German Government?

Wasnt there once a UK 'War Damage Commission' to which claims had to be notified?

 

[Elecman]

Doubtful. They’d just send all their far bigger claims our way...

Dismissed immediately as they started it!!, they reaped what they sowed to paraphrase Churchill

 

[Bald Rick]

Damages Claims forwarded to the German Government?

Doubtful. They’d just send all their far bigger claims our way...

Another benefit of Brexit

 

[eMeS]

Devon and Cornwall police have now said due to structural damages and surveying of all buildings within the cordon residents are unlikely to be able to return home today (Sunday)

So, is this the best way for the authorities to deal with old bombs found during excavation?
I'm ignorant on these matters, but are there very heavily made units in which such a bomb could be transported, and away from peoples' homes etc? - to be exploded in a more remote place. Nuclear flask, perhaps?

 

[221129]

So, is this the best way for the authorities to deal with old bombs found during excavation?
I'm ignorant on these matters, but are there very heavily made units in which such a bomb could be transported, and away from peoples' homes etc? - to be exploded in a more remote place. Nuclear flask, perhaps?

In short, yes. If that device detonated during transport then the damage wouldn't bare thinking about.

Oh dear. It’d be pretty awful wondering what you’ll eventually be getting home to.

Seeing some of the photos of evacuated properties away from the initial inner cordon I would not want to be the owner of a property next to the blast.

 

[CD]

So, is this the best way for the authorities to deal with old bombs found during excavation?
I'm ignorant on these matters, but are there very heavily made units in which such a bomb could be transported, and away from peoples' homes etc? - to be exploded in a more remote place. Nuclear flask, perhaps?

You cannot move the bomb unless it has been defused, but some had booby traps installed so far too risky to try.

 

[Ploughman]

So, is this the best way for the authorities to deal with old bombs found during excavation?
I'm ignorant on these matters, but are there very heavily made units in which such a bomb could be transported, and away from peoples' homes etc? - to be exploded in a more remote place. Nuclear flask, perhaps?

If you try and contain any device you increase the effective power of the explosive.
Would you want to be the driver of the vehicle moving the device in a contained state?
It may work on small charges but above 200kg no.

Loose material like sand absorbs the blast to some extent.

 

[43066]

All good .
I just had to drop one of the girls off to work and the cordon was still in place, I’ve also just realised that I know a family that live in the estate in the background of the photo here, going to try and get hold of them later and see if there was any damage to the houses.

View attachment 91546

Glad all is well.

On the bright side, your Saturday night was far more exciting then mine!

 

[Gloster]

Loose material like sand absorbs the blast to some extent.

And presumably also directs the bulk of the force upwards, although it will spread out.

There are vehicles that can carry explosive devices, although I am not sure if they are designed for such powerful ones, but it is getting the device in the container that is the problem. If it should go off while it is being moved it will seriously interfere with the retirement plans of anyone who has to be in the vicinity; there is a limit to what robots can do. It can also become an uncontained air-burst, which is far more damaging.

 

[ANDREW_D_WEBB]

I'm ignorant on these matters, but are there very heavily made units in which such a bomb could be transported, and away from peoples' homes etc? - to be exploded in a more remote place. Nuclear flask, perhaps?

In many cases the Army will transport the device to a remote location and detonate it there. I would imagine there are procedures to ensure that the movement is done safely to stop premature detonation. In the Exeter case it seems these requirements were not achievable and so detonation in situ was the least worst option.

 

[packermac]

I wonder what the insurance industry view for claims on structural damage, window replacement will be. Past experience has shown it is an industry that is adverse to payments for items not listed in the policy schedule, and I can not remember seeing uxb damage ever being mentioned in my buildings insurance. Hard enough to get flood and subsidence covered these days.

 

[Class 170101]

So, is this the best way for the authorities to deal with old bombs found during excavation?
I'm ignorant on these matters, but are there very heavily made units in which such a bomb could be transported, and away from peoples' homes etc? - to be exploded in a more remote place. Nuclear flask, perhaps?

In many cases the Army will transport the device to a remote location and detonate it there. I would imagine there are procedures to ensure that the movement is done safely to stop premature detonation. In the Exeter case it seems these requirements were not achievable and so detonation in situ was the least worst option.

Are our roads smooth enough to transport this sort of stuff away and detonate it elsewhere? Number of bumpy (pot-holed) roads where I live I'm not sure the bomb would be stable enough to remove by road.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

We had the North London line suspended for 48 hours around Canning Town in my day - a very large suspect bomb was "found" by building contractors.

It turned out to be a dumped "SMEG" type fridge. However , caution was very much the right approach , bearing in mind the pasting the area got in WW2.

It gave us 2x313 sets "spare" for the period , which actually was useful in one of the periodic crisis with fleet.

Plenty of other "non WW2" incidents , - the Northwood based (then) squad almost became good friends.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

If you try and contain any device you increase the effective power of the explosive.

This is what essentially happened to Pam Am 103, the container the case containing the bomb amplified the shock wave making the explosion worse.

 

[bazzoh]

That was one bomb..Imagine the poor souls in ww2 with several of these raining down on them (on both sides)!
Glad on this occasion no one was injured and well done to the EOD regiments involved in neutralising what seemingly turned out to be a dangerous potentially unstable device - hope the residents can return to some sort of normality (even given these crazy times) as soon as possible

 

[CHAPS2034]

Probably, very similar to the bomb in Kingston upon Thames in May 2019. That took 2 days, and trucks of sand were given a police escort to the site

There were broken windows with that as well, and lots of things covered in sand in area afterwards

Gosh - never knew about that. I used to walk down past that site every day on my way to what was then the Polytechnic. But that was 50 years ago...

 

[randyrippley]

I was speculating that a Yeovil cover driver could pilot the train forward just clear of station limits to allow the down train to be signalled from the pen mill single to the Axminster single, both drivers change ends and return to the platform etc. I wasn’t aware there was no afternoon cover at Yeovil.

Simplest answer would have been for the down train to have run through the station on what was the down fast line, or the former platform three, then set back into platform one or two, both are reversible from either end. Its been done before when a pile-up has happened

 

[pompeyfan]

Simplest answer would have been for the down train to have run through the station on what was the down fast line, or the former platform three, then set back into platform one or two, both are reversible from either end. Its been done before when a pile-up has happened

I’m not sure what the layout used to be like at Yeovil, however now there is no connection between the heritage side and mainline side at the country end of the station, only London end. From Pen Mill you can access either the Up Exeter, the Down Exeter and either Down Siding 1 or 2. There is not enough standing room for a 9 or 10 car IET to clear the points behind the unit.

 

[Steddenm]

There is drone footage off the bomb going off here - https://twitter.com/PoliceDrones/st...r^|twcon^s1_c10&ref_url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/

 

[infobleep]

Probably, very similar to the bomb in Kingston upon Thames in May 2019. That took 2 days, and trucks of sand were given a police escort to the site

There were broken windows with that as well, and lots of things covered in sand in area afterwards

Kingston University campus evacuated over 'WW2 bomb'

The Met Police says it has sought help from the Ministry of Defence to deal with device.

www.bbc.co.uk

Kingston World War Two bomb 'successfully dealt with'

The Met Police says it sought help from the Ministry of Defence to deal with device.

www.bbc.co.uk

I was working as a poll clerk on the day they discovered that bomb. Two polling stations had to be relocated. I wasn't working at either of them though. The people who might usually help manning a rest centre or help with evacuations were mostly working at the elections.

A work colleague was asked to produce a map with a buffer around it. No idea way. Turned out it was the location of the bomb and they needed to know how many polling stations where within a set distance from the bomb.

I imagine moving one polling station is bad enough, never mind moving two, whilst evacuating residents at the same time.

As this goes on new polling stations need to be found as soon as possible, so people can continue to vote.

 

[TheEdge]

So, is this the best way for the authorities to deal with old bombs found during excavation?
I'm ignorant on these matters, but are there very heavily made units in which such a bomb could be transported, and away from peoples' homes etc? - to be exploded in a more remote place. Nuclear flask, perhaps?

Yes.

If a UXB is small and stable (mortar bomb or similar) then it can be moved in an ammo box with padding and blown up.

If it's something like this, a big aerial bomb, then the first option will be to try and defuse it then blow it to pieces, scattering the explosive and making it unviable. In some cases they can steam the explosives out as well. If those can't be done for whatever reason then this is what has to happen. Bury it, try and moderate the explosives and blow the whole thing.

The biggest problem is that Explosives Ordnance Officers were high value targets to the Germans. The more you can kill with booby traps on bombs they are trying to defuse the better, so a lot of these bombs were fitted with booby trapped fuzes. While the modern bomb squad has access to old German paperwork and decades of experience the booby traps are still perfectly capable of working. A lot are clockwork, chemical or spring loaded so simple and resilient (they hand to survive hitting the ground at terminal velocity remember) and functional. It is possible to break them, IIRC very delicately drilling into the fuze, filling it with salt water and coming back 24 hours later is the go to. But in this case perhaps they couldn't confirm the type, possibly not even get to it so just decided to blow it up