Prague:
A World War II bomb went off early Friday in the eastern Czech town of Ostrava after a man tried to cut through the bomb during excavations, killing him and injuring another.
Police said on Twitter that the dead man probably mistook the bomb for an old sewer pipe.
“He used an angle grinder to chop the metal and the bomb went off,” she added.
“We can confirm that it was an aerial bomb explosion,” police spokeswoman Eva Michalikova told AFP.
Local media said a 49-year-old man died while a 31-year-old man suffered a minor head injury.
Police have evacuated about 50 people from homes within 300 meters (yards) of the site.
World War II ammunition and bombs are commonly found in the northeast of the Czech Republic through which the Red Army advanced in the spring of 1945.
Last year alone, police evacuated three times hundreds of people because of unexploded aerial bombs.
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