Hong Kong workers and residents evacuated after discovery of wartime bomb
A police bomb disposal team was still working to dismantle the US-made device on Monday afternoon
A 220kg unexploded US wartime bomb was unearthed on a construction site in Pok Fu Lam Monday morning, prompting the evacuation of dozens of people from the site and nearby flats.
Senior bomb disposal officer Tony Chow Shek-kin believed the airdrop bomb – model AN-64 – contained about 120kg of TNT explosives, and would be defused by about 11pm.
He said police had to cut holes in the bomb casing before destroying the explosives inside – the process would take about three hours. Earlier, officers took about eight hours to do protective work around the site, using sandbags.
“If the bomb explodes, fragments could fly as far as 2,000 metres,” he said, adding that the radius of affected area had been reduced to 400 metres.
Chow said the bomb had been dropped on Hong Kong during the second world war between 1941 and 1945.