3-decade-old Bombs dug out at ZIA ground
Staff Correspondent
Developers at Zia International Airport on Tuesday found four bombs, two of them live and each weighing hundred pounds, near the runway, which officials believe were dropped by aircraft during the 1965 Indo-Pak war or the 1971 Liberation War.The incident sent a wave of chill but did not hamper flight schedule, airport officials said adding Home Minister Altaf Hossain Choudhury and State Minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism Mir Mohammad Nasiruddin rushed to the airport on hearing the incident. Bulldozers of the Army Engineering Corps -- at work on extending the runway -- dug the bombs out in the area between the hangar and the runway on the northwestern side of the airport. "The driver of a bulldozer found a one-metre long iron object under the wheels at about 11:00am," a police official said. On checking, they found that it was a bomb and found three others near by. The retrieval of the bombs created panic among the officials of the airport who informed the home ministry and other officials of the find. Army bomb experts found two of them live on examination and defused them, sources said. The batch numbers of the bombs showed that those were made in 1960. The bombs did not explode as they hit a low-lying water-body, an expert said.
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Armymen retrieve four unexploded bombs, buried at least 32 years, from near the runway at Zia International Airport on Tuesday.. PHOTO: STAR |
