Czech Republic: 1,300 people evacuated after 100 kg WWII bomb found in Ostrava

On Saturday, a 100-kilogram WWII bomb in a residential neighbourhood of the Czech Republic city of Ostrava by local police forced about 1,300 residents to flee the location, as per the reports of Sputnik. A police spokesperson stated that a man digging in the ground near his home discovered the bomb, which he reported to the authorities. The first engineer on the site gave the order to evacuate everyone within 800 metres, which is home to around 1,300 people.

The spokesperson stated that after evacuating their homes, some residents sought refuge in a local school's gym, while others boarded a fireman's bus. According to Sputnik, the spokesperson also said that sappers will remove the device out of the city and destroy it after the evacuation is completed.

Police announced news on Twitter

After they found the 100 kg bomb, the Czech Republic police took to the microblogging site Twitter and shared two tweets with the images of the bomb. In the first Tweet, they stated that a World War II cougar weighing 100 kilograms was discovered on the property of a family on K. Svobody Street in Ostrava. They said that people must be evacuated from the nearby residences because this is a densely populated residential area. In the following tweet with another image, the police shared the good news stating that after 5 pm, the pyrotechnicians secured the air bomb, deactivated it, and removed it. People are now able to return home. During the test, there were no injuries.

Bombs and shells from World War II are frequently discovered near Ostrava, where the Russian Red Army launched the Moravia-Ostrava operation against Nazi forces in the spring of 1945. Approximately 3,000 large-calibre weapons and mortars, 180 tanks and self-propelled artillery batteries, as well as nearly 400 aircraft were deployed by the Red Army alone, according to Sputnik.

2014 explosion in Czech Republic

In 2014, the Czech Republic saw two explosions in Vrbětice in the course of two months, the first occurred on October 15, 2014, while the second explosion happened on December 3, 2014, killing two people. According to the Security Information Service of the Czech Republic, the explosions were engineered by Russian Military Intelligence. Earlier, this year in the April Czech Republic suspended 18 Russian ambassador due to the suspicions of Russian involvement in the explosion.

(Inputs from AP News)

Image: Twitter/@PolicieCZ