Croatian authorities stopped traffic, sounded emergency sirens and evacuated parts of the historic port city of Rijeka on Sunday.
Croatian police have released a video of a complex and dangerous operation in which a diver straps on a belt to move 1,500 pounds of aging WWII weapons.
Another video showed a distant explosion of the device that sent a huge plume of seawater into the sky.
An anti-ship mine was discovered in June near a port in the Adriatic Sea.
Authorities moved it further away from the city before detonating it with special police forces.
Police officer Nenad Krasny said the mine contained a large amount of explosives.
About 500 residents were evacuated during the operation, According to CGTNEurope.
Krasny said 20 people participated in the carefully crafted explosion. Anything else is “too dangerous for citizens and infrastructure,” he said.
Located in the northwest corner of the country, historic Rijeka is known as Croatia’s main port and third largest city.
The Axis powers occupied the city for most of World War II, and the city suffered heavily in the civil war.
According to CGTNEurope, workers discovered a Nazi-laid mine while performing work on the port’s infrastructure.
with post wire
