16,000 people evacuated after unexploded bomb found in western Tokyo

Mainichi News Service ^ | 5/19/08 | Mainichi Japan

[Tolkien]

About 16,000 people were temporarily evacuated and services on a railway line were partially suspended while an unexploded bomb was being disposed of in western Tokyo on the weekend, local government officials said.

The Chofu Municipal Government on Sunday morning sealed off an area within a radius of 500 meters from where the bomb was found, and a Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) unit began to dispose of the dud at 11 a.m. The bomb was removed by noon.

As the team disposed of the bomb, about 16,000 people, including 150 inpatients at a nearby hospital, were temporarily evacuated.

Services on the Keio Railway Line were suspended between Tsutsujigaoka and Chofu stations for three hours, inconveniencing about 70,000 passengers.

The dud was a 1-ton bomb produced in the United States. Local officials suspect that the bomb fell from a U.S. B29 bomber that crashed after a Japanese fighter plane deliberately hit it in a suicide attack in April 1945.

[Tolkien]

I wonder if the Japanese when they talk about this will remember Pearl Harbor.

I care for the Japanese people but they have a blind spot about this.

[ResponseAbility]

This is a great indicator of just how dense the population is in Tokyo, and all of Japan really. Within a radius of six football fields, they evacuated 16,000 people. Unless this was a High Rise business section, that is an amazing amount of people in such a small space.

[SunkenCiv]

Local officials suspect that the bomb fell from a U.S. B29 bomber that crashed after a Japanese fighter plane deliberately hit it in a suicide attack in April 1945.