Huge stray bomb found in Russian city bordering Ukraine
Some 3,000 people were evacuated from their homes in the Russian city of Belgorod on Saturday after an unexploded aviation bomb was discovered in a residential area, local Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has said.
Belgorod, located not far from the border with Ukraine, was rocked by an explosion on Thursday, which left three people injured, smashed the windows of nearby buildings, and damaged serveral vehicles. The Defense Ministry later said the incident was caused by an unintended release of an aerial bomb from a Su-34 jet.
On Saturday the sappers, who worked on Belgorod’s Shalandin Street not far from the site of the initial blast, found the second aerial bomb, Gladkov wrote on Telegram.
A decision was made to move the device to a nearby military testing range and dispose of it there, the governor said.
While the operation was ongoing, people living in 17 nearby apartment blocks were told to evacuate, according to Gladkov.
Belgorod Mayor Valentin Demidov said 90 buses have been allocated to move around 3,000 people to temporary accommodation.
A few hours later, Gladkov reported that the device had been successfully removed, and that residents would be returned to their homes shortly.
According to Russia’s Izvestia newspaper, the unexploded device is a FAB-500 general purpose air-dropped bomb. The ordnance, which weighs 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds), was found at a depth of five meters, the paper said.
Arms experts have ruled there is no danger of the bomb exploding, Sergey Potapov, head of the local department of the Emergencies Ministry, told RIA Novosti news agency.
