The Spanish navy has detonated the explosive found off the coast of Barcelona this Sunday by an off-duty Civil Guard officer. The Civil Guard announced that the detonation went off without problems at 3:35pm this Monday afternoon; the beach, closed to the public for more than 24 hours, was reopened shortly afterwards.
🔴📹 VÍDEO: Aquest és l’artefacte que els #GEAS de la @GuardiaCivil han trobat a la platja de #Barcelona. Demà l’@Armada_esp la retirarà per desactivar-la. https://t.co/0fPB5mZs8g pic.twitter.com/aFGHW5id0R
— ElCaso.cat (@elcasocat) 25 d’agost de 2019
The bomb, according to Civil Guard experts, probably dated to the Spanish Civil War. It contained 70kg of TNT (154lbs) and was found about 25m (27yds) from the shore and 3m down. They assessed it as being highly volatile.
After the discovery was made on Sunday by an off-duty member of the Civil Guard's GEAS (Special Group for Subaquatic Activities), Barcelona's Urban Guard quickly evacuated the beach and established a 250m security perimeter.
Video of the Spanish navy moving the shell away from the beach
For safety reasons, the decision was taken to move the bomb out to deeper waters for a controlled explosion. It proved deep enough, however, that the large number of curious onlookers had little to see when it did explode.
Doncs ja ha explotat. Ha sigut submarina. I el balcó ha tremolat una mica. L’han batejat com a “pet de monja”. 🤣 #Barceloneta #bomba pic.twitter.com/dPS8iAK9pH
— Elisenda Dalmau (@EliDalmau) 26 d’agost de 2019