Some 23,000 people were evacuated from a town in central Italy after an unexploded 500lb Second World War bomb was accidentally dug up.
Construction workers in Fano uncovered the British-made explosive on Tuesday during the construction of a drain on the town’s seafront.
Officials ordered the overnight evacuation of every resident within a 1.1-mile radius of the metre-long bomb – around a third of the town’s population.
Bomb disposal experts from the Italian Navy transported the device two miles out to sea on Wednesday. It will remain where it is for 144 hours, after which experts will carry out a controlled explosion.
That is the maximum time required to see if the device explodes on its own if its time-delayed trigger was accidentally activated during the excavation.
Thousands of soldiers took part in the overnight operation, during which trains and air traffic in and around the city were suspended, according to The Local.
Massimo Seri, Fano’s mayor, praised the army’s “special” work and said the town was now “out of danger”. Residents were allowed to return home on Wednesday, though schools remained closed.
The unearthing of Allied bombs is an occasional event in Italy. Allied forces dropped hundreds of thousands of explosives on Italy during World War Two, many of which failed to explode.
