Vintage World War 2 bombs found in NCotabato town

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Army and police explosives experts on Wednesday disposed of a dozen World War II bombs found by farmers while digging a grave for a neighbor tribesman in a hinterland district in North Cotabato’s Makilala town.

Inspector Rizal Alolod, acting chief of the Makilala municipal police, said the explosives could have been kept by Japanese forces in a bunker covered by soil and rocks that cascaded from a nearby hill overtime.

Alolod said the farmers digging on a strategic spot on a hilly area in Barangay Kisante, Makilala discovered the bombs when one of them struck one of the projectiles with a pick mattock.

Alolod said responding bomb disposal operatives safely retrieved and transported the bombs to a nearby depot for recovered explosives such as unexploded landmines, cannon and mortar projectiles and fragmentation grenades.

Alolod said senior citizens in Barangay Kisante said there could be more undiscovered  bombs in their area, where units of the Japanese Imperial Army established enclaves during World War II.

Barangay folks and government bomb disposal men had safely defused several bigger bombs found by farmers in the surroundings of Barangay Kisante in recent years.