Police bomb disposal officers destroyed a Japanese wartime explosive with a controlled blast in North Point of Hong Kong on August 26. The WWII remnant had been buried for nearly 70 year but was still live.

The 80-pound, nearly two feet armor-piercing bomb was found to have come from the Imperial Japanese army assault on the city. It was discovered by workers at a construction site next to the North Point Ferry Pier on August 26. More than 2000 people were evacuated from the area. Streets were closed off and a nearby bus terminus was shut down while police conducted the detonation at the site. Initial reports had the bomb as being "too big to detonate."

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After the detonation, local bomb experts showed off pieces of shrapnel to the assembled press. 

Japan invaded Hong Kong on December 8, 1941. Then a British territory, officials in London and in Hong Kong itself already knew that enclave would likely fall in the face of a concerted Japanese offensive. When the invasion did take place, the mainland sections of the colony swiftly fell to Japan, but the island of Hong Kong proved a formidable redoubt for the British and Canadian defenders. The Imperial Army began shelling Hong Kong on December 15 after a demand for surrender was rejected. 

The Japanese ground offensive began on December 18, but did not achieve victory and a surrender of Hong Kong defenders until December 25, an event recorded in British history books as the "Black Christmas."

World War II left much of Asia and Europe littered with unexploded ordinance. An American-made bomb was discovered in Hong Kong last February, and Germany regularly unearths bombs and shells from Allied attacks on Nazi positions.

Despite the passage of time, bombs can stay live for years. The Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport north of Miami was evacuated in 2012 when man was discovered to be carrying in his luggage a live cannonball he had salvaged off the Florida coast. It had been made around 1700.

TagsHong Kong, bomb, wwii