Advertisement

Explosives cache found in apartment building

Author thumbnail
Explosives cache found in apartment building
Police and bomb experts arrive at the apartment building. Photo: DPA

Police have uncovered a hobby bomb maker’s large cache of explosives in an apartment building in the Baden-Württemberg town of Merdingen after the man severely injured himself in a botched detonation.

Advertisement

The stockpile, described as “very large” by a police spokesman, was discovered in the building's cellar after a 35-year-old man seriously injured himself blowing up his homemade bombs in a field on Saturday.

He was in a critical condition having suffered serious facial wounds and losing several fingers.

He was discovered by a farmer in a field where he had been carrying out detonations.

The man had apparently mixed the explosives himself, in the cellar belonging to his apartment, and fellow residents of the building were unaware that they were living in close proximity to a dangerous bomb cache.

The cache had posed an ''acute danger'' to neighbours, police said in a statement.

Neighbours were told via loudspeaker to remain in their apartments with the windows shut as bomb disposal experts, police, the fire brigade and emergency services searched the man's apartment and cellar.

The explosives were of the kind considered too dangerous to be transported over a long distance. The police therefore blew up the stockpile in a controlled detonation in a nearby cornfield.

The Local/dw

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also