Dunnings Bridge Road was closed twice this week after construction workers discovered unexploded bombs
Construction workers have described how they discovered two unexploded bombs while digging at a site in Bootle this week. Merseyside Police were called to North Atlantic Avenue, near Dunnings Bridge Road, in Bootle, at around 11.45am today, Thursday, October 24, following the discovery.
It followed a report of an unexploded ordnance being found for the second time this week. Police were called to the same area on Tuesday after another device was found, leading to a road block being put in place on Dunnings Bridge Road between Park Lane and Boundary Road, with the junction of Netherton Way.
As a result of the cordon in the area, an office block holding an estimated 500 people was forced to evacuate, one office worker told the ECHO. Construction workers who made the discovery told the ECHO today how they were less than a metre away from the unexploded bombs.
READ MORE: Man pulled from bike by ‘masked’ men near retail parkREAD MORE: Man jailed after firearm found in front yard
One worker, who found the first bomb on Tuesday, said: “We’re construction workers on the site, we’ve been groundsmen for years and never seen anything like this. We were working, digging down and we got to a sandy bit and it felt really soft, then as we were digging down we saw a bit of metal. We thought ‘ah it’s a bomb’ and ran to tell the gaffers.”
He added: “The same thing happened today. The lads were working only about a metre deep and it popped out of the ground. They’re saying they are British bombs, we had a meeting with a guy from the army and he said it was the bombs used for when the aircrafts were coming over and they’d try and shoot them down, but they’re the ones that haven’t exploded and come back down into the ground.”
The worker said: “It was scary, you just don’t really believe it’s a bomb, like I say we’ve been groundworkers for years and never seen anything like it. Especially two in a same week. They were within ten metres of each other, it’s a bit worrying when you don’t know what you’re digging into. They stopped us using the machines, the three of us would have been dead if it had gone off when we hit it with the machinery.”
After the bomb was recovered from the scene, it was taken to Ainsdale beach where it was detonated by the EOD Unit. Eye on Southport (EoS) captured the moment police put in a cordon off the beach and footage shows the unexploded WW2 bomb being detonated and disposed of. The worker added: “We watched the explosion on the news, it was quite a bang. The one they got here on Tuesday they set it off at the beach.”
Another construction worker, who found the bomb this morning (Thursday), told the ECHO how he is “lucky to be alive.” He said: “We were digging out for a bit of drainage, the guy was digging, he lifted it up and dropped it into the dumper and as he’s dropped it I’ve seen it come out of the bucket, I’ve looked at him and he’s looked at me and went ‘was that a bomb,’ and I said ‘oh s*** that’s a bomb.’
“We’re lucky to be alive, we were only a metre away from it, if it had exploded we would have been blown to smithereens.”
