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| Europe |
| Berlin to dig up old WWII bombs under Tegel airport runway |
| 2009-01-23 |
| Authorities have known for some time that old World War II munitions lie underneath the runways at Berlin’s Tegel airport, but now the airport plans to dig them up in early 2009, daily Berliner Morgenpost reported on Friday. Clean up crews will work to uncover old bombs and grenades at some 500 points, city development head Ingeborg Junge-Reyer told the paper. The bomb recovery is part of the city’s work to adhere to the United Nation’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) requirements, which state that big planes like the Airbus A 330 – which land and take off at Tegel - need wider runways. As the Berlin city government discussed the project, politicians called Tegel an "objectively dangerous situation" because of "live munitions near the ground surface" that could be detonated by vehicles, airplanes or "mowing and landscape work that digs into the ground," the paper reported. The head of Berlin’s civil underground engineering department Frieder Bühring told the paper that the "suspicion" of old munitions was not adequate for the city to undertake a preventative clean-up project, but that it was necessary to protect workers from potential explosions during the runway expansion. The chance of a bomb going off, however, is as likely as winning the lottery, he added. More than 60 years after the end of World War II, weapons recovery remains an important task for police and private companies throughout Germany. Allied forces dropped more than 2.7 million tonnes of explosives across Germany during the war. Some of the ordnance did not explode and has become increasingly dangerous with time and corrosion. |
| Posted by:mrp |
| #2 Damn! I've landed there a dozen times and never knew this. At least at Tegel they keep the lights on and coffee shop open for the last flight from Gatwick unlike what used to happen at Templehof (ghost town). Of course, Templehof is a mere memory these days - too bad - great old terminal and more conveniently located to my business dealings. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2009-01-23 10:38 |
| #1 The chance of a bomb going off, however, is as likely as winning the lottery, he added. And someone always seems to win. Maybe he should be first in line for a ticket. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-01-23 10:31 |