A ROYAL Navy bomb squad was in action for the second time in eight days last Wednesday as it detonated another bomb found in the sea near Hinkley Point.

The 250lb Second World War device, discovered by divers checking the seabed before the construction of cooling water tunnels for the power station, was half the size of the bomb that Navy experts successfully detonated on August 8, as reported in last week’s Free Press.

As before, the bomb was ringed by a one kilometre exclusion zone and the area was off-limits for shipping for 24 hours.

David Eccles, EDF Energy’s head of stakeholder engagement, said: “The safety of the public and our workforce is our priority and we have a team of ten divers checking the seabed ahead of the construction of structures for Hinkley Point C. As a precaution, we put a cordon zone around the area.”

Nearby Lilstock Range was used by the Navy for practice bombing until 1995. It is now a helicopter gunnery range.