Plymouth bomb: How will disposal of WWII explosive work – and is there a risk it could explode?
More than 3,000 people have left their homes after an unexploded Second World War bomb was found in the back garden of a home in Plymouth.
Devon and Cornwall Police declared a major incident on Tuesday and evacuated properties within 200 metres of the bomb, extending it to 309 metres on Thursday.
Plymouth Council has confirmed bomb disposal experts from the army and navy plan to dispose of the bomb today – but how will they do it?
Here’s everything we know about the bomb and what’s being done to remove it – plus expertise from a bomb disposal expert.
What do we know about the bomb?
The bomb, which can also be referred to as an unexploded ordnance (UO), is a 500kg (1,102lb) German bomb from the Second World War, a Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesperson has said.
The MoD identified it as a SC500 transverse fuzed airdrop weapon which, according to the Luftwaffe Resource Centre’s website, was a “general demolition bomb”.
Pic: FPS Images
It’s the same type of bomb that was found off the north coast of Guernsey in July 2023 by a local diver. The Royal Navy carried out a controlled explosion on the Guernsey bomb within an hour of specialist divers going to see it for the first time.
Andy Abbott, who spent 25 years in the Army Reserve’s bomb unit, told Sky News it was one of the biggest types of bombs the Germans dropped during the war that still get found today.
Where is the bomb and how was it found?
Officers were first called to a property on St Michael Avenue in Keyham on Tuesday, after a man reported finding the device while digging out the foundations for an extension in the garden.
Speaking to Plymouth Live, the man who called police said he actually found it “about a week ago”.
Map shows the area where a cordon is in place
He said he “hit something with a spade, but we weren’t sure what it was at first”.
He said rain over the next few days made the object increasingly visible.
The man called the police on Tuesday and sent them photos.
“Five minutes later there’s a knock on the door and police officers asking to have a look,” he said. “The next minute they’re suggesting a cordon.”
Mr Abbott said bombs such as this one are usually found in big fields or in docks rather than more confined places such as the Keyham garden.
Who is dealing with it? And could it explode?
It was Devon and Cornwall Police who first came to the scene, but since then there has been the Royal Navy’s bomb disposal unit, military personnel and service members of various search and rescue teams, including from the local fire brigade.
Plymouth Council said the bomb would be removed and transported by military convoy through the city for disposal at sea.
In a statement, the council said the bomb disposal experts considered a controlled detonation on site, but ultimately decided “the safest and least impactful option is to remove the device from St Michael Avenue and travel to the Torpoint Ferry slipway – for the bomb to be disposed of at sea (beyond the Breakwater)”.
“Highly trained bomb disposal experts will carefully remove the device from the property and it will be transported by road in a military convoy, west along Parkside and Royal Navy Avenue, joining at the junction on Saltash Road to continue south joining Albert Road, turning right along Park Avenue and heading down Ferry Road to the Torpoint Ferry terminal,” the statement said.
Mr Abbott says “the best option is to always blow it up in situ”, but added the squad would have weighed up the damage that could be done to nearby houses and infrastructure.
When it comes to moving it “there is a risk, but it’s a minimal risk,” he added. “They wouldn’t be going with this process if they hadn’t weighed up the odds and found that it was pretty safe. But it is a big one, and there’s obviously always a slight risk.”
Explaining the process, he said: “They’ll probably lift the bomb onto the back of a truck, most likely with a crane.
“You protect it as much as you can on the back of the truck, probably by burying it in loads of sandbags, then they’ll gradually move it with a police cordon in place down to the sea.”
Images on Thursday showed tonnes of sand being delivered to the area, which a police source told Plymouth Live would be used to build a sand wall around the unexploded bomb.
Mr Abbott said sand and water bags are often used to mitigate for the bomb going off and that the bomb squad would have weighed up detonating the bomb on site, using them to contain the explosion.
“But you’re probably going to be blowing up four or five houses at least,” he said. “Even if you try and mitigate the explosion, the damage to those properties… they would be knocked down.”
Royal Naval Bomb Disposal experts dug around the explosive and used a special device to assess it.
A team of 200 volunteers from some of the organisations mentioned above have been visiting houses in the Keyham area, checking that the necessary homes have been evacuated and offering information to local residents.
Why not just diffuse it?
Mr Abbott says that while a fuse as old as the ones in a WW2 bomb are unlikely to be dangerous, there is a type of explosive acid often built into them which may cause problems while trying to diffuse it.
“Obviously the device is very old now. The fusion system they used on these were two fuses that transverse in the bomb itself,” he explained.
“So you’d have to mitigate the fusing. And by now, after this time, the fuses would be quite safe. The only issue you might have is sometimes these things were filled with picric acid, so you’d have picric crystals that can form after leaking and that is dangerous.
“So if you try and remove the fuse or take the fuse out that way, that could have the same effect as the fuse actually working. So you need to mitigate the risk of that too.”
How many people have been evacuated and when can they go back?
The cordon has meant 1,219 properties have been affected and an estimated 3,250 people have had to leave the area this week, with residents encouraged to stay with friends and family.
Those who have been evacuated have only been allowed to return to their homes to collect “urgent, essential items only” including medication or a pet, the council added.
But now residents of the Devon city living within 300 metres of the convoy route will need to completely evacuate their home between the hours of 2pm and 5pm this afternoon.
The council said it would “aim to keep residents informed throughout the operation” and that it would announce when roads are being reopened on its website and on social media.
Plymouth’s Life Centre has been set up as an emergency rest centre with tea and coffee, blankets, towels and toothbrushes, a creche and faith room available.
A similar incident to this one occurred in Plymouth in 2011, when an explosive device was unearthed by a workman at a building in Notte Street, near the city’s Hoe.
The device was made safe before it was moved to the seabed off Plymouth Sound, with an exclusion zone around it.
Plymouth saw more than 50 bombing attacks during the Second World War.
Four people have been charged after £7m of damage was caused to two Voyager aircraft at RAF Brize Norton.
The investigation into the incident early on Friday 20 June was led by counter-terror police.
They have been charged with conspiracy to enter a prohibited place knowingly for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK – and conspiracy to commit criminal damage.
Two Voyager aircraft at RAF Brize Norton were damaged. PA file pic
The four charged have been identified as:
• Amy Gardiner-Gibson, 29, of no fixed abode
• Daniel Jeronymides-Norie, 35, from London
• Jony Cink, 24, of no fixed abode
• Lewie Chiaramello, 22, from London
They will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court later today.
A 41-year-old woman arrested last week on suspicion of assisting an offender has been released on bail until 19 September.
Meanwhile, a 23-year-old man detained on Saturday was released without charge.
Last month’s incident at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire was claimed by the activist group Palestine Action.
Yesterday, MPs voted to proscribe the group as a terrorist organisation.
The legislation passed with 385 MPs voting in favour, while 26 were against.
UK
No 10 backs Chancellor Rachel Reeves and says she ‘is going nowhere’ after tearful appearance in Commons
Rachel Reeves has not offered her resignation and is “going nowhere”, Downing Street has said, following her tearful appearance in the House of Commons.
A Number 10 spokesperson said the chancellor had the “full backing” of Sir Keir Starmer, despite Ms Reeves looking visibly upset during Prime Minister’s Questions.
Politics latest: ‘A moment of intense peril’ for PM
A spokesperson for the chancellor later clarified that Ms Reeves had been affected by a “personal matter” and would be working out of Downing Street this afternoon.
Politics latest: Reeves looks visibly upset in Commons
UK government bond prices fell by the most since October 2022, and the pound tumbled after Ms Reeves’s Commons appearance, while the yield on the 10-year government bond, or gilt, rose as much as 22 basis points at one point to around 4.68%.
Downing Street’s insistence came despite Sir Keir refusing to guarantee that Ms Reeves would stay as chancellor until the next election following the fallout from the government’s recent welfare U-turn.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch branded the chancellor the “human shield” for the prime minister’s “incompetence” just hours after he was forced to perform a humiliating U-turn over his controversial welfare bill.
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Ms Badenoch said: “This man has forgotten that his welfare bill was there to plug a black hole created by the chancellor. Instead they’re creating new ones.”
Turning to the chancellor, the Tory leader added: “[She] is pointing at me – she looks absolutely miserable.
“Labour MPs are going on the record saying that the chancellor is toast, and the reality is that she is a human shield for his incompetence. In January, he said that she would be in post until the next election. Will she really?”
Not fully answering the question, the prime minister replied: “[Ms Badenoch] certainly won’t.
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Welfare vote ‘a blow to the prime minister’
“I have to say, I’m always cheered up when she asks me questions or responds to a statement because she always makes a complete mess of it and shows just how unserious and irrelevant they are.”
Mrs Badenoch interjected: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”
The prime minister’s watered-down Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill, aimed at saving £5bn, was backed by a majority of 75 in a tense vote on Tuesday evening.
A total of 49 Labour MPs voted against the bill – the largest rebellion in a prime minister’s first year in office since 47 MPs voted against Tony Blair’s Lone Parent benefit in 1997, according to Professor Phil Cowley from Queen Mary University.
After multiple concessions made due to threats of a Labour rebellion, many MPs questioned what they were voting for as the bill had been severely stripped down.
They ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to Universal Credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.
Ms Badenoch said the climbdown was proof that Sir Keir was “too weak to get anything done”.
Read more:
The PM faced down his party on welfare and lost
Labour welfare cuts ‘Dickensian’, says rebel MP
Ms Reeves has also borne a lot of the criticism over the handling of the vote, with some MPs believing that her strict approach to fiscal rules has meant she has approached the ballooning welfare bill from the standpoint of trying to make savings, rather than getting people into work.
Experts have now warned that the welfare U-turn, on top of reversing the cut to winter fuel, means that tax rises in the autumn are more likely – with Ms Reeves now needing to find £5bn to make up for the policy U-turns.
Asked by Ms Badenoch whether he could rule out further tax rises – something Labour promised it would not do on working people in its manifesto – Sir Keir said: “She knows that no prime minister or chancellor ever stands at the despatch box and writes budgets in the future.
“But she talks about growth, for 14 years we had stagnation, and that is what caused the problem.”
Prosecutors are considering whether to bring further criminal charges against Lucy Letby over the deaths of babies at two hospitals where she worked
The Crown Prosecution Service said it had received “a full file of evidence from Cheshire Constabulary asking us to consider further allegations in relation to deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital and Liverpool Women’s Hospital”.
“We will now carefully consider the evidence to determine whether any further criminal charges should be brought,” it added.
“As always, we will make that decision independently, based on the evidence and in line with our legal test.”
Letby, 35, was found guilty of murdering seven children and attempting to murder seven more between June 2015 and June 2016 while working in the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital and is currently serving 15 whole-life orders.
Letby worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital and Liverpool Women’s Hospital
She is understood to have carried out two work placements at Liverpool Women’s Hospital, where she trained as a student, between October and December 2012, and January and February 2015.
Police said in December that Letby was interviewed in prison as part of an investigation into more baby deaths and non-fatal collapses.
A Cheshire Constabulary spokesperson said: “We can confirm that Cheshire Constabulary has submitted a full file of evidence to the CPS for charging advice regarding the ongoing investigation into deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies at the neo-natal units of both the Countess of Chester Hospital and the Liverpool Women’s Hospital as part of Operation Hummingbird.”
Detectives previously said the investigation was looking into the full period of time that Letby worked as a nurse, covering the period from 2012 to 2016 and including a review of 4,000 admissions of babies.
Letby’s lawyer Mark McDonald said: “The evidence of the innocence of Lucy Letby is overwhelming,” adding: “We will cross every bridge when we get to it but if Lucy is charged I know we have a whole army of internationally renowned medical experts who will totally undermine the prosecution’s unfounded allegations.”
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Three managers at the hospital where Lucy Letby worked have been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter.
On Tuesday, it was confirmed that three managers at the Countess of Chester hospital had been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter in a separate investigation.
Read more from Sky News:
‘Catastrophic failure’ that led to Heathrow power outage revealed
Man charged with murder of 93-year-old woman in Cornwall
Police said the suspects, who occupied senior positions at the hospital between 2015 and 2016, have all been bailed pending further inquiries.
There is also an investigation into corporate manslaughter at the hospital, which began in October 2023.
A public inquiry has also been examining the hospital’s response to concerns raised about Letby before her arrest.
In May, it was announced the inquiry’s final report into how the former nurse was able to commit her crimes will now be published early next year.
Earlier this year, Letby’s lawyers called for the suspension of the inquiry, claiming there was “overwhelming and compelling evidence” that her convictions were unsafe.
In February, an international panel of neonatologists and paediatric specialists told reporters that poor medical care and natural causes were the reasons for the collapses and deaths.
Their evidence has been passed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, and Letby’s legal team hopes her case will be referred back to the Court of Appeal.
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