WWII-era shells readied for disposal
10,000 Hamamatsu residents, 7,100 more in Kobe evacuated so GSDF squads can remove ordnance
Bloomberg, Kyodo
Residents evacuated a swath of the city of Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, and Higashinada Ward in Kobe on Sunday morning as military explosives experts prepared to move two World War II-era artillery shells.
Around 10,000 Hamamatsu residents were forced to evacuate and rail and road traffic near the site of the latest find, a 860-kg shell, had to be halted. The dud was apparently fired by a U.S. Navy ship toward the end of the war, the municipal government said in a statement.
A Ground Self-Defense Force bomb squad was scheduled to blow up the shell on a nearby beach later Sunday.
In Kobe, meanwhile, around 7,100 residents were evacuated to allow GSDF officers to remove a 250-kg shell that was discovered last month at a depth of 3 meters.
Almost 70 years after the end of the war, GSDF bomb squad personnel are still clearing unexploded ordnance throughout the nation, including, occasionally, in central Tokyo. They have dealt with some 6,000 tons of duds since the government began keeping records in 1958, according to Defense Ministry records.
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