Police have confirmed that an old World War II bomb exploded at a construction site in Bandar Malaysia yesterday evening.
Three Bangladeshi workers were seriously injured in the blast. Two have confirmed to have lost their legs, while another has sustained serious injuries to their hands and legs.
They are at Kuala Lumpur Hospital receiving treatment.
The Fire and Rescue department arrived on the scene 10 minutes after the initial emergency call was made at 5:23pm.
Unexploded bombs are still being uncovered in past theaters of war. After war in the Pacific was declared in 1941, the Allies heavily bombed a Japanese-occupied Malaya peninsula.
Earlier this year an unexploded 1.3 meter-long, 227kg bomb was uncovered by excavators from the Road Transport Department in Sandakan. Luckily, there were no injuries and the bomb squad were able to defuse it.
Last month, an unexploded bomb that had laid dormant for decades was discovered in Frankfurt. 60,000 were evacuated while operations were carried out to safely dismantle a bomb so big they called it “blockbuster.
And finally, while we’re on the subject of un-exploded bombs, in 2008 a bizarre story made headlines after a scrapyard owner managed to BUY an unexploded bomb from a passer-by, apparently not realizing what it was. Two workers were tasked with dismantling it, and died after triggering it to explode. The entire scrapyard was annihilated, along with an adjoining hostel, while windows nearby were blown out.
