Workers dredging sand to reclaim land for a Disneyland theme park are turning up a huge harvest of old bombs, police explosives experts said yesterday.
World War II era bombs are found from time to time in Hong Kong, but the dredgers are working in waters used as a dumping ground by the British military for decades, so they're discovering several bombs a week and keeping bomb disposal crews far busier than usual.
"We had two over the weekend," said Alick McWhirter, assistant bomb disposal officer of the police Explosive Ordinance Disposal Bureau.
That makes 45 bombs and unexploded shells since workers began dredging mud in October from south of Hong Kong island to be used for reclaiming an area called Penny's Bay in outlying Lantau Island where Disneyland will be built.
"They've been picking up various shells and whatever," McWhirter said. "We take them away and make sure they are safe."
The Disney park, set to open in 2005, will be several kilometers from the area where the dredgers are discovering the bombs. Disney executives did not immediately return a telephone inquiry yesterday about the explosives.
Authorities frequently find bombs in areas of Hong Kong that were hit by US and Allied air raids during the Japanese occupation of 1941-45, but police agreed the number of bombs found during the Disney dredging seems a bit on the high side.
"It's because they've been digging in a dumping ground," McWhirter said, adding that work crews also fished up numerous bombs and shells while dredging mud to reclaim land for Hong Kong's new Chek Lap Kok airport.
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