Another World War II-era bomb found at a construction site close to the border in the western city of Nova Gorica was safely defused on 20 October after residents on both sides of the Slovenian-Italian border had to leave their homes as a precaution.

The 104-kilo English-made aerial bomb was discovered by construction workers renovating the Nova Gorica train station on 23 September, the eighth bomb to be unearthed at the same construction site.

This time the deactivation took a little longer because the technicians had problems removing the fuse, but it all ended well and still within the planned time frame.

"Let's hope this is the last evacuation, at least in this area," Civil Protection commander Srečko Šestan told reporters following the fourth cross-border evacuation due disposal of unexploded ordnance (UXO) found at the site.

Around 5,000 people on both sides of the border had to either evacuate or stay indoors between 8am and 10.36am when the sirens sounded an all-clear sign, 36 minutes after they went off to warn the public of the danger.

Residents in the 400-metre radius from the site on the Slovenian side and those living within 600 metres from the bomb on the Italian side had to evacuate. In addition, those living between 400 and 600 metres from the site on the Slovenian side had to stay indoors.

Valuable advice of Austrian bomb technicians

A total of 155 staff were involved in the operation, with officials from both sides of the border thanking the residents and the units involved for their contribution as well as praising smooth cross-border co-ordination.

"In the first phase, the fuse went off without problems. In the second phase, where another detonator had to be pulled out, it got a bit stuck, but technician Aljaž Leban had the tool ready and we successfully deactivated the bomb," said Darko Zonjič, the head of the national UXO protection unit.

"The fuse must have been damaged when the bomb was dropped and it was impossible to extract it using the conventional procedure. Our Austrian colleagues had a similar problem a while ago and they told us what tools they used to tackle it. So we prepared for the contingency and successfully solved the problem," Leban, the head of the regional UXO protection unit, explained.

More UXO potentially at the site

The bomb will be taken to a storage facility and disposed of within three months. According to Zonjič, they now have to scan another one third of the Nova Gorica train station area so it is well possible they will find another unexploded bomb.

Most recently, a 226-kilo bomb was deactivated at the site on 25 August and on 17 March two aerial bombs were defused and one was detonated in a major such campaign.

The Nova Gorica authorities say bomb technicians have put more than 1,000 hours of work during 130 days they spent on the railway construction site. Discounting the latest bomb, the have removed 49 unexploded ordnance weighing one ton and 800 kilograms in total. They also unearthed over 16 tons of various metal remnants.

Having had a strategic importance for the Nazi forces, the area of Nova Gorica train station was bombed several times by the allies just before the end of WWII.

Remnants of both world wars

The broader area along Slovenia's western border is also scattered with the remnants of World War I, being the site of the Isonzo Front, one of the bloodiest battlefields of the Great War.

Only days ago, members of the national UXO protection unit unearthed 292 dangerous remnants of war, mostly bombs, mines and grenades, in a vineyard above Prvačina in the Nova Gorica municipality.

This was after an older couple spotted three hand grenades sticking from the ground and alerted authorities. Scanning the site with metal detectors, bomb technicians dug out UXO weighing a total of 466 kilos.

UXO unit commander Zonjič told the local newspaper Primorske Novice the find was rare given the sheer amount of UXO. He believes locals must have been cleaning up their fields and vineyards in the inter-war period and brought them all to the site and buried them shallowly.

Based on data and recordings of WWII bombings, Slovenian historian Sašo Radovanovič estimates that around 60,000 bombs were dropped on Slovenia during World War II and around 6,000 of them never exploded.