Police investigate reports of an explosion after a World War II ordinance appeared to have exploded in an apartment.
G?ubczyce Police

Two men in their 60s were hospitalized after a World War II artillery shell that one of them had found in a forest and brought back home exploded. Both men had been drinking alcohol, police said, and one of them was significantly over the legal limit for driving in the country when he was found in the damaged apartment.

Police in G?ubczyce, a community of roughly 12,000, received reports at about 7:30 a.m. on October 21 of a window seen hanging off an apartment building, as though it had been blown out from within.

Officers, along with bomb-sniffing dogs and counterterrorism experts, were dispatched to the scene, where they evacuated the residents of the building and surrounding houses.

Upon entering the apartment, police found two men and a 45-year-old woman under the influence of alcohol. One of the men and the woman had blood alcohol levels of 0.25%, which is 12 times over the legal driving limit in Poland.

The two men were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, the police said.

The owner of the apartment told authorities he found the artillery shell while walking in the woods several years earlier.

After a search of the premises, officers located another unexploded device, an WWII-era mine, which they secured and later neutralized at a military training ground.

Prosecutors have launched an investigation into the incident.

"We remind you that if you discover an object resembling an unexploded ordnance, you must not, under any circumstances, move, touch, or disarm it," police said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that large projectiles can have a range of up to several hundred yards. "The area where it is located should be secured from access by unauthorized persons, especially children. If you are in an open space or forest, mark the area so that no one enters it and it can be easily found."

Source