A WWII German bomb was found at 5am this morning by a barge dredging the Portsmouth Harbor ahead of the arrival of HMS Queen Elizabeth next spring.
Royal Navy bomb disposal experts have inspected the device and a plan is in place to tow it out of the harbor and destroy it in open waters off the eastern Isle of Wight.
Bill Oliphant, Captain of Portsmouth Naval Base , said: “This is the third piece of historic ordnance found in the harbor during the dredging works since September.”
“Again we are working with Hampshire Police to ensure we deal with this incident in the safest way possible, at the same time causing least disruption to the city.”
As a precaution, a 500-meter cordon is in place around the barge and cross-channel ferries currently cannot leave or enter Portsmouth continental ferry port.
The bomb was found by Boskalis, which has been contracted by the Defense Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) to carry out the £31 million dredging program.
This project includes capital dredging of the approaches, harbor entrance, turning basin and berth pocket.
The works are being undertaken using a combination of backhoe dredgers, trailing suction hopper dredgers and crane barges from the Boskalis fleet.
[mappress mapid=”23251″]