Exclusive: Video of Exeter’s World War Two bomb detonation

A World War Two bomb in Exeter which was found near the university’s halls of residence was detonated today at around 6pm.

An Exeter student told The Exeter Tab the explosion engulfed halls of residence: “The explosion engulfed Moberly in the dust cloud”.

The Tab Exeter’s exclusive video of the detonation can be seen here:

Earlier today, The Exeter Tab reported university halls of residence were evacuated after the suspected WW2 bomb was found yesterday afternoon. Students have been moved to hotels, houses and other alternative accommodation, with some being evacuated to as far as Taunton.

One student told us: “It’s been an incredibly weird 24 hours.”

The BBC reports that over 400 tonnes of sand was used to create an “enclosing box” before the area was made safe at 6:12pm GMT.

The bomb had been scheduled to be detonated between 5:30pm and 6:30pm this evening.

Over 2,600 households were evacuated, as well as around 1,400 students from 12 halls of residence after the bomb was found by builders on private land next to Streatham campus on Friday morning.

Police said bomb disposal crews “worked through the night to establish a walled mitigation structure” and they had been expecting “a big bang” to be heard “quite a distance across Exeter” during the operation to make it safe.

There were reports of the detonation being heard five miles (8km) away, with one Twitter user tweeting that it was heard in Tiverton.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.