Hong Kong police disarm second 450kg wartime bomb after ‘dirty, difficult and dangerous’ operation

Explosive Ordnance Disposal officers cut through shell of device and burn off explosives inside

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Bomb disposal officers with the disarmed bomb. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 8:30am, 1 Feb 2018Updated: 11:50pm, 1 Feb 2018

Hong Kong police have described the removal of a second wartime bomb – which was stuck in the mud at a Wan Chai construction site – as a particularly “dirty, difficult and dangerous” job due to precarious on-site conditions.

After a mass evacuation of close to 5,000 people, bomb disposal officers conducted an overnight operation, which lasted about 24 hours, to safely defuse the unexploded ordnance weighing around 450kg (1,000lbs), by Thursday morning.

Construction work at the site for the Sha Tin-Central rail link resumed within three hours of the bomb being made safe.

Police also said they would not anticipate whether more bombs would be found at the site after workers discovered two there within five days.

The bomb was moved from the site after being disarmed by officers. Photo: Sam Tsang

Fifteen bomb disposal officers were deployed in the operation, which involved having to cut through the device’s casing and then burning off the explosives inside. At 10.45am, police announced that the job was done, nearly 24 hours after workers found the bomb.

“Although the handling of the bomb was more difficult than expected, the time it took [to defuse it] was actually relatively short,” said superintendent Maxim Kwok Mei-sum, police divisional commander for Wan Chai.

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