"Successful explosion of projectile in Paraparaumu"

Please attribute to Constable Rob Eastham:

At around 9:45am this morning Police were contacted by a family who had found an old projectile from a World War Two era artillery round at their Paraparaumu property.

It is understood the item was found by the family in Belmont Regional Park during the school holidays.

The kids took it home to their grandparents house, and after googling the item they thought it was safe to keep and clean it up to take to school for show and tell.

Last night the children returned to their home in Awatea Avenue in Paraparaumu with the artillery round in the car.

Another grandparent was concerned about whether it was safe to have and moved the item into the backyard and rang Police this morning.

Police responded to the property and put in place a safe cordon and evacuated three nearby houses as a precaution.

The New Zealand Defence Force Bomb Disposal Unit attended and inspected the projectile and confirmed it was potentially still live and should be detonated in a controlled explosion.

The unit carefully transferred the projectile to a safe location at Higgins Quarry in Paraparaumu.

The item was buried under approximately a metre of gravel in a safe part of the quarry and detonated by remote from around 300 metres away.

Police want to take this opportunity to remind anyone who finds an item such as this to contact us right away and not touch it.

People’s safety is our priority so we need people to be careful in situations such as this.

If ever in doubt, call 111.

ENDS

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