Events: Complications with bomb disposal (source: ČT24)
An unexploded aerial bomb from the Second World War threatens one of the largest chemical sites in the Czech Republic. Unipetrol in Litvínov therefore stopped the operation of the refinery. Most of the employees stayed at home. Construction workers found the cougar. It has a special mechanism and manipulation is not possible for 144 hours. According to the police, there is no danger to the residents.
While excavating, workers came across a 500-pound English flying bomb on Wednesday afternoon. The danger and uniqueness of this find, according to the police, lies in the initiation mechanism. So far, pyrotechnicians have only worked with finds that had a mechanical initiation system.
“In this case, the bomb contains a long-lasting chemical time igniter, which is very dangerous not only in its unpredictability,” the police said. The danger is that the timer can be set up to 144 hours. Pyrotechnicians communicate, among other things, with colleagues from Germany, who have more experience with the findings of aerial bombs with chemical time detonators, she informed on website POLICE.
The puma weighs 250 kilograms, the explosive weighs one hundred kilograms. Drastic measures, such as the evacuation of almost six hundred people and the closure of an area of about 1.5 kilometers for six days (until August 27), are in place, according to the police. The effect of time played a role in the deterioration of the find, which, according to the police, makes the work of pyrotechnicians much more difficult.
Traffic restrictions
The road between Most and Litvínov is now passable again, the police originally closed it on Wednesday evening after the discovery of the cougar. Public transport has resumed, the police said shortly before 15:00 on the X network. The railway line and the service road leading from the other side of the complex remain closed.
The Orlen Unipetrol Group, after consulting with the police, decided to shut down production in the refinery section. On Friday, they will shut down the ethylene unit because there is a lack of raw materials due to the shutdown of the refinery. The chemist assumes that the entire area will begin to operate again after the bomb is removed.
Chemical bombardment
Unexploded ammunition from the Second World War was repeatedly found in Mostek in the past, the location was the target of large Allied air raids precisely because of the chemical plant that produced fuel for war needs. Systematic bombing began on May 12, 1944 and lasted almost a year. Allied pilots attacked the chemist sixteen times.
According to estimates, nearly seven thousand aerial bombs hit the operations. More than ten and a half thousand more in the immediate vicinity. The most tragic was the very first raid, during which hundreds of people lost their lives, German security prevented the employees from leaving the premises.
The Litvínovská chemical plant was one of the most frequent targets of bombing on the territory of the protectorate.
The reliability of aerial bombs is also essential. Of the German ones, roughly one in ten failed, estimates for the Allied ones are up to twice as high. In the case of Litvínov and the surrounding area, this can mean up to four thousand unexploded aerial bombs. A large part was destroyed by pyrotechnicians immediately after the end of the war. But some remain underground and are dangerous even today.
Pilsen experienced the largest evacuation due to an unexploded bomb. Five years ago, around twenty thousand people had to leave their homes there. Pyrotechnicians were defusing an almost quarter-ton bomb, clearing the area within a radius of one kilometer.
