For around 80 years, more than 300 bombs lay beneath the facilities at the old airport in the Greek capital. Now they are defused. It is unclear whether there are others.
Greek army experts have defused 314 bombs in an underground storage room at the Athens airport, which has been closed since 2001. As the Athens newspaper “Kathimerini” further reported, citing experts from the Landmine Clearance Battalion (TENX), the bombs dated back to the Second World War. They were therefore stored two meters underground.
“We only live by chance,” said Giannis Konstantatos, mayor of the region, on Greek radio. For eight decades, airport facilities stood above and next to the camp and, after its closure, schools, kindergartens and, during the Athens Olympic Games in 2004, sports facilities.
According to the mayor, the German Air Force had stored the bombs in the old airport on the coast of Athens during the occupation of Greece (1941-1944) and left them behind when hastily leaving southeastern Europe because of the Red Army’s advance in the Balkans. “The bombs lay next to our houses for 80 years,” he told the Kathimerini newspaper.
A huge new district is currently being built on the approximately 620 hectare airport site on the Athens coast. New hotels and numerous luxury residential complexes are being built. The work is being made more difficult because of the risk of more bombs underground, Greek media reported.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
