Police were called to a construction site in Kingston, south-west London, after a suspected German 250kg bomb was unearthed by builders. As a result, an army bomb disposal team was immediately dispatched and a safety cordon was set up.

Having identified the unexploded ordnance as a large German high explosive bomb, a wider codon was implemented. This resulted in the evacuation of thousands of residents, local schools and the Kingston University campus.

German 250kg bomb
The crater caused by the controlled explosion.

Controlled detonation

The army engineers worked throughout the afternoon, with some 1,500 residents returning home from work being told to stay away from the area.

Although specific details are lacking, it is clear that the bomb squad was unable to safely defuse the weapon. A controlled detonation was therefore required to eliminate the threat. A number of houses on Fassett Road sustained blast damage, with numerous broken windows reported.

German 250kg bomb
One of the houses damaged by the explosion.

Similarly, in 2015, a German 250kg bomb found in Birmingham had to be blown up in-situ, damaging adjacent properties.

How can this specific threat be mitigated?

Brimstone provides intrusive magnetometer survey services to the UK construction industry. These surveys allow our customers to carry out piling works safely in the knowledge that their pile drivers will not strike any large German bombs.

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