Workers dredging sand to reclaim land for a Disney theme park are turning up a huge harvest of old bombs and some artillery shells may get carried there and buried undetected, police said Monday.
The bombs could cause ''fairly extensive'' damage if they blew up while being moved, but none have exploded yet and they would pose no threat if they end up under the landfill being built to make way for Disney, said Alick McWhirter, assistant bomb disposal officer.
World War II era bombs are found from time to time in Hong Kong, but the dredgers find themselves working in waters used as a dumping ground by the British military for decades, so they're discovering several bombs a week and keeping disposal crews far busier than usual.
''We had two over the weekend,'' McWhirter said from his office at the police Explosive Ordnance Disposal Bureau.
That makes 45 bombs and unexploded shells since workers began dredging mud in October from south of Hong Kong island to be used for reclaiming an area called Penny's Bay in outlying Lantau Island where Disneyland will be built.
Still, the bomb experts aren't worried. There have been no explosions and the disposal officers say the public is in no danger.
Most of the explosives were found and defused near the area being dredged, but several were carried in the mud several miles (kilometers) away to the site being reclaimed for Disneyland, McWhirter said.
''The vast majority were around the dredging,'' he said. ''I think about four or five were spotted when the sand was being unloaded.''
McWhirter said it's likely some artillery shells will end up buried there but added they would pose no risk to Disneyland or the public. Six-inch artillery shells have been the most common finds, he said.
''Once it goes into the landfill, that's about it, unless you're tossing it around,'' McWhirter said. ''Once it goes into the landfill, it's not really an issue.''
After numerous bombs were discovered while workers dug up mud to reclaim land for Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok airport, local dredging equipment was modified to keep the biggest explosives under water, he said.
One bomb caught by a dredging vessel in 1993 blew up and sank the boat, he said.
Disney spokeswoman Marie Garvey referred questions about the bombs to the Hong Kong government. The dredging is a government project and Disney executives will not have access to the reclamation site until next year, Garvey said.
''As we understand, it is not an unusual occurrence in this area,'' Garvey said by telephone from California. ''We've been assured by the government that they're taking every precaution.''
Authorities frequently find bombs in areas of Hong Kong that were hit by U.S. and Allied air raids during the Japanese occupation of 1941-45, but police agreed the number of bombs found during the Disney dredging seems a bit on the high side.
''It's because they've been digging in a dumping ground,'' McWhirter said.
The British army dumped old bombs in the waters off Hong Kong from the 1950s until the 1970s, apparently never thinking that someday dredging crews would be working in the same areas, he said.
Everytime the dredging workers find a bomb, they have to stop working and summon the explosives teams.
About a year ago, police found two 500-pound (225-kilogram) U.S. bombs left over from World War II in two Hong Kong construction sites. About 1,000 people were evacuated from a hospital and nearby university housing while one of the bombs was defused.
The Hong Kong Disney park is a joint venture between the government and the Walt Disney Co., based in Burbank, California.