Hong Kong Police Dismantle ‘Biggest’ World War II Bomb

The largest bomb from World War II was discovered on a construction site in Hong Kong last Thursday late night. The bomb was found by the building workers in the Happy Valley district, near the city’s famous downtown racing track. Hong Kong police dismantled it successfully on Friday.

The nearly one-ton US Navy ANM66 bomb weighed 2,000 pounds and more than 1.7-metre long, with a diameter of 600 centimeters, the police reports said. Buildings around the site including two hotels, a Sikh temple and residential housing were evacuated on Thursday following the discovery of the bomb. Nearby buildings would have collapsed if the bomb had gone off, the police said.

“It was the biggest bomb ever found in Hong Kong,” a police spokeswoman told AFP. Bomb disposal experts took 15 hours to dismantle the live explosives from the bomb. “Because the explosive inside was very sensitive, we had to cut the shell in a low-temperature environment, so the process took longer than expected,” senior bomb disposal officer Yuen Hon-wing told reporters.

The bomb was believed to have been dropped by US forces in 1945 against the invading Japanese, who occupied Hong Kong until 1945.

Infoeditor