Wartime bomb found in Qrendi

Workers unearthed a German World War II bomb, in Qrendi, yesterday morning during excavation works in connection with the extension of the town's cemetery.

Members of the 3rd Regiment's Explosive Ordnance Disposal team were immediately alerted and dispatched to the site, which was cordoned off by the police.

The AFM made the 500-kilogramme German Luftwaffe aerial bomb safe before moving it for disposal at sea later, an AFM statement said.

The Qrendi and Mqabba area around Luqa airport was one of the most severely bombed zones in Malta during the war given the strategic importance of Royal Air Force and Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm fighters and bombers based there.

The aircraft were not only defending the Maltese Islands but also embarking on raids in nearby Axis-occupied Sicily and attacking re-supply convoys to Field Marshall Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps in North Africa.

Such a bomb find is not surprising to many veteran residents of these areas, the AFM said. Many can recall frequent similar finds during works to extend the airport runway in the 1980s.