Second world war bomb found at the bottom of the Elbe - Hamburg
 

(Article in German)

http://mobil.radiohamburg.de/Nachrichten/Hamburg-aktuell/Hamburg-regional/2017/Maerz/Finkenwerder-220-Kilo-Bombe-im-Hamburger-Hafen-entdeckt


Seems like a 220kg bomb from ww2 was found at the bottom of the Elbe river here in Hamburg. Defusing will be underway today.

What are the chances of this thing being active after 60 years under water?

Depending on the type of bomb, a very high chance of it still being very dangerous. Many of the WW2 explosives are stable and dangerous for a long time, and numbers of them become more unstable with age.
The type of detonator also plays a part in whether it is more dangerous than when it was dropped. The time-fuse detonators are the very worst type for instability with age.
A sizeable percentage (up to 10%) of WW2 ordnance never detonated, some due to the way they landed, some due to assembly or manufacturing errors.
German cities that were heavily bombed during WW2 are not places I would choose to live today.

Smithsonian mag.com - Unexploded bombs left in Germany. 2000 tons of UXB's discovered annually.

Well that's London and many other European cities stuffed as well then....(I agree the overall tonnage dropped on Germany does possible increase the risk).

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...inster-bridges

I experienced a severe underwater explosion in 42 metres of water, most likely as the result of disturbing a Second World War bomb, while shortening in an anchor cable in a south coast wartime convoy assembly area a few years ago.

Wiggy - I'm hard-pressed to find any accuracy in the quoted figures for the tonnage of German bombs dropped on Britain during WW2.

The site below gives these seemingly official figures ...

Tonnage of Bombs on British Targets 1940-1945*

..1940 .... 1941 .... 1942 ... 1943 ... 1944 .. 1945

36,844 .. 21,858 .. 3,260 .. 2,298 .. 9,151 .. 761

* includes V-weapons

https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/medi...OF_BRITAIN.pdf


The Express article below, says ...

"50,000 tonnes of high-explosive bombs and 110,000 tons of incendiary bombs (were dropped during the Blitz)".
The Express also details how around 10% of German bombs failed to go off - but ...
"Brave bomb disposal units successfully dealt with 40,000 unexploded bombs, with 750 of their own number perishing while trying to defuse the devices."
That figure would seem to indicate that London and Britain in general doesn't have too many WW2 UXB's left, to worry about.

40 facts about the 1940 bombings of WW2 | History | News | Express.co.uk


The History Place states "18000 tons (of bombs, were dropped) during 8 mths of the Blitz .."

The History Place - World War II in Europe Timeline: The Blitz


I think this article from the Independent below, could have the figures (and the comparisons), pretty right. Their total tonnage number jells with the University of Exeter figures, listed by year, above.

"The Luftwaffe's total of 74,000 tons of bombs dropped on Britain, was utterly eclipsed by the nearly two million tons dropped by RAF Bomber Command and the US 8th Air Force by the end of the war in 1945".

Germany's bombs set our cities and homes alight, but we carried on | The Independent

On that basis, Londoners have a vastly lower chance of finding a leftover WW2 bomb in their city, as compared to many German cities.

That'll be one of ours. The Americans dropped all theirs into some sort of pickle barrel. Or so they say.

That'll be a 500 pounder for those of us who work in black and white.:)

Here's a photo of the offending WW2 bomb.

In Hamburg-Finkenwerder: Bagger saugt Fliegerbombe aus der Elbe an | MOPO.de

I remember an interview with the UXB men of Hamburg harbour ( a specialised team due to the ongoing finds from the WW2) where the question was asked, 'Did they feel fear ?'....Very cooly they explained that the human reaction to an unfortunate explosion was such that they would be blown so many ways asunder before they would realise, therefore they wouldn't know, therefore there was no reason to worry about it happening....Very brave chaps in my book.