A man is dead Friday after a bomb unexpectedly exploded at a construction site in a town in west Germany on Friday. The bomb is said to be from World War II.
The bomb detonated when the digging machine operated by the man struck the bomb during excavations in Euskirchen, BBC News reported. The construction worker died on the spot and eight others were wounded.
"During excavations...the digger uncovered a wartime bomb, which exploded," police spokesman Norbert Hardt said, according to Reuters. "The driver was killed, and several others close to the digger were hurt. Two are seriously injured and six lightly."
The explosion "caused significant damage, also in neighboring streets where glass and garage doors were blown out," Hardt said, Reuters reported.
During WWII, the Allied forces pummeled Germany with countless bombs, many of which remain hidden to this day. Local authorities routinely conduct searches and safely detonate the bombs before they explode accidentally. Bombs are often discovered during construction work, Reuters reported.
Bombs are also commonly found in the industrial areas of North Rhine-Westphalia, the German state where Euskirchen is located, Reuters reported.
Government officials from the state defused 706 bombs in 2012, Reuters reported.
Bomb squads in Koblenz city found two bombs and a military fog-making machine left by American and British forces at the end of WWII in 2011, CNN reported. The city's 45,000 residents were evacuated. One of the bombs, which weighed 1.8 metric tons, could have desecrated the city if it exploded, CNN reported.
In April 2013, a 220-pound Russian aerial bomb was found in central Berlin not far from a train track, CNN reported. Hundreds of residents in the area were evacuated while the bomb was safely disposed of.
According to the BBC, it is rare for anyone to be killed because a bomb was accidentally detonated.
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