Police: Anti-ship Mine Found in Danube Successfully Defused

       Virt, 4 August (TASR) - The largest bomb ever found in Slovakia has been successfully disposed of by bomb disposal experts from Nitra region police in cooperation with bomb disposal experts from the Police Corps' Criminalistics and Forensic Institute in Bratislava and members of the Fire and Rescue Corps, the Nitra region police unit told TASR on Tuesday.
        The anti-ship mine was discovered in the Danube River near the village of Virt in Komarno district (Nitra region) on Sunday (2 August) by a passer-by after water levels on the River Danube had fallen. The discovery was reported to the police, who immediately took all necessary safety measures, including by suspending traffic on that stretch of the Danube.
        The 700-kilogramme aerial bomb was loaded by bomb disposal experts onto a specially modified fire brigade vehicle with a sand bed so that it could be transported safely. The bomb was taken to a predetermined safe location, where experts placed it in a pit approximately five metres deep. It was then defused by means of a controlled explosion under strict safety measures.
        According to the findings to date, it was a British naval aerial mine dating back to WWII that most likely ended up in what is now Slovakia during Operation Gardening, when the Royal Air Force (RAF) mined the River Danube in 1944 in order to disrupt supplies to enemy forces.