An army expert has warned there could be scores of unexploded wartime bombs just inches below Southend's busy streets.

The alert, from Retired Major Gerry Collins, Foulness Island's range operations manager, came after a shell brought traffic chaos to the town.

Essex and Suffolk Water workers unearthed the artillery shell around midday on Thursday while laying a new water main outside SWS Skip Hire on London Road near the Cricketers' Inn.

Police immediately closed off the area between Queensway roundabout and Milton Road, while a bomb disposal unit from Colchester raced to the scene.

Shop workers were forced to leave their stores and stand behind a police cordon.

Retd. Major Collins, from the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency site, said the bomb was later disposed of in a controlled explosion on Foulness Island.

"If it had gone off in the street it would have sent shrapnel flying up to 400 metres. There were many artillery units in this area and so the discovery of more shells is always a possibility."

The discovery came just a few weeks after an unexploded mine was discovered off Southend Pier, forcing its evacuation.

Peter Wilkins, Essex and Suffolk Water site supervisor, said of the incident: "About 18 inches down the lads saw some metal and thought it was the cap end of an electric cable.

"Then one of them dug deeper and realised it was a bomb".

Worker David Ali said: "I saw this piece of metal and cleared away the mud and then started to wiggle it about. One of the others told me to leave it alone, but I kept tugging at it and it eventually came out of the mud.

"It was about 18 inches long, and four inches in diameter and was a heavy dead weight. I turned it about and then the penny dropped. I think I've only got eight lives left."

Fellow workers Ian Smith and Roger Lewis cordoned off the area before calling the police.

Inspector Trevor Chaplin of Southend police praised their quick thinking.

He said: "The shell was quite rusty and had no markings on it, but we take no chances in these kind of instances. The bomb experts warned a nudge or knock could set it off and so we closed the road.

"After checking it out, the army officer in charge was happy it probably would not explode. He believed it was safer to move it to Foulness Island and deal with it there rather than on the street."

Bomb alert - the cordoned-off scene with, inset, the shell that workmen dug up

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