Great Yarmouth man was watching TV when wartime bomb exploded opposite his house
A man who was watching TV at home when a wartime bomb exploded across the road says it was a "very scary" experience.
The unplanned detonation of the World War Two bomb happened in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, on Friday after three days of army specialists attempting to diffuse the device.
Norfolk Police said no one was injured by the explosion, but locals said their houses and windows had shaken from the deafening blast.
Paul Durrant lives across the road from where the bomb went off at Bollard Quay and was watching television at the time.
Mr Durrant said: “I was sitting in the dining room.
"We weren’t expecting the bomb to go off but there was just an almighty boom and all my windows opened on the ground floor.
"None were broken, we received no damage but it was very scary.
"I was just shaking. It was really, really worrying."
The explosion sent debris flying into the air, along with a plume of smoke. (Image/drone footage: Norfolk Police).
Local residents had been asked to evacuate the area when the bomb was found, with 200 and 400m cordons put in place.
The cordons were lifted on Friday after the explosion, with residents who had left their homes returning after over three days of disruption.
Mr Durrant said his immediate reaction to the blast was to check if the emergency service workers were safe.
"I went upstairs to our back bedroom, opened the window and I could see the soldiers were walking around on the sand bags," he said.
"I shouted to one of the soldiers up there to make sure everyone was okay and he said they were fine.
"That obviously put my mind at rest because that was a really worrying thing to open the window and not know what to see.”
On Saturday, Norfolk Police confirmed that the damage from the blast was limited due to the protective sandbox built around the bomb.
Debris has been cleared from Southtown Road and some minor repairs were carried out to the road surface.
The team in charge of the diffusion had abandoned attempts to cut through the bomb's outer casing earlier on Friday afternoon, as water from the operation was destabilising the sand barrier built around the 250kg device.
The bomb was discovered on Tuesday morning during work on a construction of a new bridge.
It was one of the biggest news stories of our time - and it's still not over. So what did Boris Johnson know about Downing Street’s notorious parties? With fresh revelations from our Number 10 sources, in their own words, listen to the inside story...