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Date Published: 02/08/2024

Live bomb found dumped in recycling bin in Spain

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The high-explosive anti-aircraft shell was discovered by a Gran Canaria recycling centre employee

Live bomb found dumped in recycling bin in Spain

Complaints about rubbish piled up beside bins are nothing new in Spain, but one recycling plant worker in Gran Canaria got the fright of his life this week when he found a huge, unexploded anti-aircraft shell at the centre in Telde.

Once the first patrol from the National Police arrived, they learned that someone, for reasons unknown and completely unfathomable, had thrown the live bomb into a recycling bin which had then been collected by a garbage truck and returned to the plant for sorting.

The device turned out to be an 88mm calibre anti-aircraft high-explosive shell with a firing capacity of 88x570. This hefty bomb weighed in at 7.6 kilos and contained 765 grams of explosive (trilite) and 2.6 kilos of gunpowder.

It was thrown in the bin, completely live, with its propellant and charge intact.

The specialised TEDAX Group of the Canary Islands Higher Police Headquarters was notified, and the building was evacuated. The bomb disposal experts then carefully examined the shell before transferring it to their group facilities, where it will be thoroughly studied before it’s destroyed.

Earlier this week, Spanish Navy divers carrying out a routine training exercise in Alicante stumbled across an unexploded Civil War bomb just a few kilometres off El Postiguet beach. The device had been completely swamped by marine life and was almost missed by the experts, who later detonated it safely in a controlled underwater explosion.

In other news: Almost 800 people died last month in the Spanish heatwave

Image: Policia Nacional

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