The Italian Army bomb squad of the 8th "Folgore" parachute engineer regiment intervened in the municipality of Verona to neutralize a large war remnant dating back to the Second World War.
The device, a high explosive US-made aircraft bomb weighing approximately 450 kg, was found during excavation work on a construction site in a residential area and promptly placed in safe conditions by a team of specialists from the Italian Army.
The delicate reclamation operations, coordinated by the prefecture of Verona and the command for operational forces north of Padua, began at 09:00 following the completion of the evacuation procedures of the clearing area (755 meters from the discovery site) which involved approximately 3.000 resident citizens; during the activities, for safety reasons, the closure of railway traffic on the Brenner line, the ban on vehicular traffic on the Brenner provincial road and the ban on overflights over the entire area of operations were ordered.
The bomb squad first made the device safe by depriving it of the sensitive organs (fuses) and then removed it and transported it to a specially identified area in the municipality of Sommacampagna (VR) where it was detonated on the night of 28 December to ensure full operation at the Verona airport.
To guarantee the maximum safety framework, the engineers specialists have created field fortification works, specifically designed for the need, to contain the effects of an accidental explosion during the neutralization phase and thus reduce the inconvenience to the resident population.
