Unexploded WWII bomb found in London

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Police behind a cordoned-off area in London on Monday Associated Press/Photo by Philip Toscano/PA

Police on Monday evacuated people from a busy area of central London after construction workers discovered a bomb left over from the German Blitz while working on Dean Street in Soho. A Royal Engineers bomb disposal unit removed the 1,100-pound device, which had never exploded.

Is this unusual? The British Ministry of Defense said it has dealt with an average of 60 unexploded German World War II bombs throughout the country per year since 2010, the BBC reported in 2018. In 2015, officials uncovered a 550-pound WWII bomb in a basement in East London. German air raids dropped more than 12,000 metric tons of bombs on London during the war, killing nearly 30,000 residents.

Dig Deeper: Read the Imperial War Museum’s record of what happened to London during World War II.

Onize Ohikere

Onize is WORLD’s Africa reporter and deputy global desk chief. She is a World Journalism Institute graduate and earned a journalism degree from Minnesota State University–Moorhead. Onize resides in Abuja, Nigeria.

@onize_ohiks