Vietnam War Bomb Caused by Famous Accident Found by Construction Crew

A construction crew in California may have discovered a piece of Vietnam War history right here at home.

Accordingly CBS NewsWorkers found what appeared to be an undetonated bomb near the Roseville Railroad outside of Sacramento. It was discovered near the site where an ammunition train carrying bombs for the Vietnam War caught fire and exploded in 1973, scattering bombs and explosives throughout the area.

“According to the official report, they can't say for sure what happened, but they think one of the wheels of the freight car overheated and set the train on fire, and some bombs exploded, and it was a chain reaction.” Larry Fritz, president of the Citrus Heights Historical Society, said: CBS News.

The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department has yet to confirm the bomb's origin, but Fritz sent a photo of the bomb to a friend who worked cleanup after the 1973 disaster. “He confirmed it. He said, 'Yes, that's one of the bombs,'” Fritz said.

Luckily, no one died in the explosions that lasted for about a day and a half. “We sat there and watched the bombs go off at night, and you know every four or five minutes we would see a big orange fireball go off,” Fritz, who had just turned 18 at the time, told KCRA..

“I think about 1,200 of them exploded,” he recalled. “A lot of them were released from the explosion. So I'm sure they cleared as many of them as they could. But, you know, there were so many they couldn't catch them all.” He noted that the newly discovered bomb was “in the immediate vicinity of the epicenter” and that its location could tell a lot about its origin. “I can't think of any other reason it's there. So I'm pretty sure it's from the explosion in 1973,” he said.

Local authorities have yet to confirm the bomb's connection to the Roseville Railroad explosion, but they believe it may be a remnant of the devastating event.

“I would never say never. Our bomb squad guys haven't said that yet, but they're obviously going to get into it,” Amar Ghandi of the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office told KCRA. “It's crazy, right? 51 years later, things like this could potentially still pop up because as we continue to grow, more homes will be developed, more construction will be built. I hope that's the last time. But it wouldn't surprise any of us if more showed up.”

Comments

No comments yet. Why don’t you start the discussion?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *