Durban - Three M26 hand grenades were discovered buried in the garden of a block of flats in Smiso Nkwanyana (Goble) Road, Morningside, on Thursday.
Five workers were digging in the garden to unearth storm water pipes when they came across a strange object in the sand at the Somthya block of flats.
Contractor, Denver Naidoo, told the Daily News one of them saw something roll off the spade.
“He must have dug about half a spade down. The spade grazed the grenade when it went into the ground and when he picked it up to offload the sand, the grenade rolled off. It... seemed rather old,” Naidoo said.
Tenant Mohammed Cassim, who was with the workmen at the time, thought it was an oil filter, but on closer inspection, he saw in bold yellow letters the word “Grenade”.
At the bottom in yellow writing it read, “M26” grenade and, below that, “Danger - explodes in 4.5 seconds.”
The M26 is a fragmentation grenade developed by the US military. It entered service around 1952 and was also used by the South African military.
The shocked men alerted Berea police who called the SAPS explosives unit.
“We were told to evacuate the (four-storey) building (but) most of the residents were at work,” Cassim said.
“Police used a metal detector in the garden which helped them find two more grenades. It took hours for the scenario to end.”
Explosives unit policemen wearing special bomb protection gear removed the grenades and placed them in a container. They were taken to a safer location by the explosive unit.
Berea policemen, Captain Thomas Naidoo and Sergeant Arthur Durandt, had to keep curious onlookers at bay when a crowd gathered.
Naidoo said his workers were in shock but would continue with the job today.
- Daily News