A bomb calorimeter from World War II explode at the Miyazaki Airport in southwestern Japan on Wednesday . No one was injured but more than 80 flights have been canceled . Japan ’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashisaidhe expects flight of steps to summarize on Thursday .
The bomb exploded on a taxi strip far from any construction and was captured on video . The blowup leave a monumental volcanic crater in the pavement that will take sentence to quicken . A subsequent investigating by Japanese constabulary and armed forces reassert that a 500 - pound sign U.S. bomb was the case , but it ’s too early on to know what exactly touch off the blowup .
The world is covered in undischarged ordnance . During World War II America degenerate hundred of thousands of bombs across Japan and the relief of the South Pacific . Sometimes these bombs do n’t explode and they sit , undetonated , in the earth . They ’re still dangerous and the world is covered in them . The airport was a launching area for Nipponese pilots during the war .
The crater left behind by the explosion of a WWII-era bomb at a Japanese Airport on 22 February 2025.© Kyodo News screenshot
It ’s a particular trouble in the Solomon Islands , the site of heavy shelling during the Pacific Campaign . Every year , around 20 mass cash in one’s chips or are seriously hurt by World War II - geological era munitionsleft behindby the U.S. and Japan . The U.S. has spent millions to facilitate clean up the arena , but multitude still die while cooking meals or select the wrong footprint in a place where the background has wobble and disgorged a bomb .
The problem is also sorry in Vietnam where the U.S. pretermit billion of munitions during its state of war . Chuck Searcy , a Vietnam ex-serviceman who watched a child kick an undischarged rocket while visiting the country 10 later , spend the back half of his life clean them up . Project Renew , the group he get down , has detonated more than815,000 munitionsin the country . There ’s still more where those came from .
Europe is also continue in bombs left over from World War II . The Allies dropped an estimated 2 million lashings of dud on Germany alone . No one knowshow many are wait under the surface , ready to explode .
The United States has n’t been spared the problem . The Civil War dotted the country with undischarged gun . Researchers establish an unexploded shell at Gettysburgin 2023 . A year before , archaeologists expose anotherlive daily round in Georgia . The local dud squad recovered the arm and planned to blow up it , which do a minor arguing among historians and Civil War buffs who wanted it unarm and preserved .
But that variety of matter is dangerous . In 2008 , more than 140 twelvemonth after the oddment of the Civil War , the fight take another American spirit . A Civil War buff in Virginia , Sam White , found an unexploded casing from the warfare and took it home to reestablish it . It exploded in his driveway , killing himinstantly .
Every yr , Japan scours its country for unexploded ordnance and every year it finds new bombs to detonate . The one below the paved taxi strip at the Miyazaki Airport was one it missed . It ’s strong to know how many more are out there wait to explode .
Japan
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