Three people have been killed and six injured trying to defuse a World War II bomb in central Germany.

Workers building a sports stadium had earlier unearthed the bomb in the town of Goettingen.

It was not immediately clear why the bomb, reportedly weighing 500kg (1,100lb), had detonated.

Unexploded WWII bombs dropped by Allied planes are frequently found in Germany, though it is unusual for them to explode unexpectedly.

Frank Gloth, a local fire brigade spokesman, told Germany's Bild online that an evacuation of the area was under way when the bomb went off.

"We are all shocked here," he was quoted as saying. "Only a few days ago, we defused a similar bomb without any problems."

That's some bomb

Under the command of Wing Commander Willie Tait 617 and 9 squadrons flying out of Scotland on a clear day, and no smoke screen from the Tirpitz, dropped twenty eight 12,000lb tallboy armour piercing bombs on her at least two hit her square on, this time the attack was more than she could take with direct hits to the hull she started to flood and list, then her own magazines exploded this was the end for the Tirpitz.

My guess is, having laid in the ground for over 60 years, some of these bombs are becoming a little unstable...

Seem to have destroyed almost all the punctuation as well.

It's not my fault this time. It's dambusters.org.

If you'd watched the Ch4 series Blitz Street you'd know that it's actually one of the smaller bombs that were dropped during the war.

Mark

If you'd watched the Ch4 series Blitz Street you'd know that it's actually one of the smaller bombs that were dropped during the war.

I was kinda thinking along the lines of the craters and property damage 500-1000lb car bombs have done over here when I typed that - I knew they got much bigger from stuff I've read about the Belfast Blitz alone

Have you dug your garden over yet Dave

People tend to forget we generally dropped whatever we could on Germany, German civilians seemed to be acceptable targets in WWII.

precision bombing