Large mine found in shipping area

When the substantial German parachute mine was trawled up by a fishing boat in the approaches to the Thames Estuary, the crew lowered it to the seabed and reported their find to the MoD.

Operating from a RIB, four Royal Navy ordnance disposal divers used air bags to raise the two-metre-long, metre-wide device which would have been dropped from an aircraft.

They towed the mine to a position off the Isle of Sheppey’s Warden Point, at the south-eastern extremity of the mouth of the Thames, and established an exclusion zone around it.

The device, containing 750kg of high explosive, was then destroyed by controlled explosion. The plume rose an estimated 120m into the air.

In March 2010, a similarly large parachute mine was found in the middle of Dorset’s busy Portland Harbour.