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Feuerwehr Muenchen via EPA
A handout picture by the Fire Department of Munich made available on August 29, 2012 shows firefighters walking past a burning protective wall after the controlled blasting of an unexploded WWII-era bomb in Munich, Germany, early on August 29.
Feuerwehr Muenchen via EPA
Firemen extinguishing a fire which broke out in a neighboring building after the blast.
Nearly 3,000 residents were evacuated from the heart of Munich on Tuesday before explosives experts detonated the remains of an undetonated, 550-pound World War II bomb, Andy Eckardt of NBC News reports.
Bales of straw which had been placed around the bomb to cushion the shock of the detonation were set ablaze and thrown through the air by the detonation, according to the European Pressphoto Agency. Some of them landed on the roofs of neighboring buildings and ignited fires.
Marc Mueller / EPA
Before the controlled explosion, the bomb was covered with sand bags as nearly 3,000 people left their homes nearby.
Police in Munich say experts successfully detonated the remains of a 550-pound bomb from the Second World War on Tuesday evening.
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Pretty potent for a 65+ year old bomb!
That's how "civilized" western countries distinguished in WW2, bombing 600 000 women, children and senior citizens to pieces in Germany alone. Well done war "heroes". There should have been Nürnberg theatre for allied war criminals also.
Yes we should have just left Hitler alone, he was a good ole boy didn't bother anybody! You poor cicilized Ruskies who raped and murdered their way through Germany were that much better, you need to read more history.
Sorry for the misspelling of Civilized hit post before spell check.
Now there's an instant classic right there....Something Obama would think of...Let's cover a bomb that we're about to ignite with flammable bails of hay....Yeah makes sense.
What a dumb rant, mindless for sure. You are soooo much smarter than the folks who were involved and what the hell does Obama has to do with this.....mindless.
there were experts from north-east germany on-site.
Apparently even wet hay-bales will be transformed into wall-piercing projectiles due to the blast (reason for the dry straw). Sandbags would be even worse and create more destruction. The fires were not started by burning straw (even if this was so in some cases, the fires were easily put out, houses in germany are not easily flammable) but by still hot splinters from the bomb which pierced walls and roofs (hay-bales were used to catch the splinters).
Also they could not dampen the explosion too much (simply dropping sand on it), because the the crater created would be bigger and they would need to demolish some houses around the crater because of the unstable ground.
The hay bale was a cheap solution, but the hay should be wet with water so they can not burn or flying around
Obama's foreign policy at work....
MOJO you and right wing wingnuts lost the election so go suck a lemon!
Glad to see all the Monday Quarterbacks at work. A few thoughts from an American currently in Munich:
1) Considering the small distance between the bomb and the surrounding buildings it is a surprise how little damage has been caused. None of the surrounding houses has damages of the core structure. Windows have been blown out as a result of the blast wave and there has been some damage due to smaller fires.
2) The detonation of the bomb was led by specialists and not the local fire department. They find WWII explosives frequently in Germany and have plenty of specialists deal with them. They are detonated only in rare cases - in this case it had to be done since the bomb had a chemical detonator (the bomb was designed not to explode when hitting the ground, but with a delay to go off when rescue teams are searching for survivors). The fire department took care of fires after the detonation. They were also issuing press releases - guess the explosives experts had better things to do.
3) The Sgt. Schulz comments are just sad - look at the list of Nobel laureates and inventors of such items as the automobile, the jet engine, the MP3 format, ... , or think about who got the U.S. space program working.
Yes our Nazi German rocket scientists were better than the USSR'S Nazi German rocket scientists.