City holds breath as bomb moved

HUNDREDS more residents had to be evacuated from homes as a military convoy removed a 500kg bomb from a garden in Keyham and transported it to the water's edge so it could be blown up underwater.

- HERALD REPORTERS

With the device having been uncovered on Tuesday, and thousands already evacuated from homes within a 309m radius, Army bomb disposal experts decided the safest thing to do was to remove the device rather than blow it up where it lay.

Around 1pm yesterday, a 300m cordon was thrown up around the route from St Michael Avenue to the Torpoint Ferry slipway, via Parkside and Royal Navy Avenue, Saltash Road, Albert Road, Park Avenue and Ferry Road.

This was in addition to the 309m cordon that already existed around St Michael Avenue.

Everyone living or working insid the new cordon, including at schools and Devonport Dockyard, had to move out from 2pm to after 6pm while the bomb was moved.

This is in addition to the 3,250 people who were already moved from their homes when an initial 200m cordon was set up on Tuesday and then extended on Thursday.

The military convoy took just 20 minutes to carry the bomb from the house where it was discovered to the water's edge.

Police vehicles were used to enforce the 300m cordon around the route on which the bomb will be transported.

Several police vehicles were in place near the junction of Park Avenue and Ferry Road. Once at the waterside, the bomb was moved onto a "slow-moving" Royal Navy vessel and taken out to sea.