MANDEVILLE, Manchester — There is still mystery surrounding how and when a war-era bomb got to a property in Mandeville, but the man who found the explosive weapon is thankful that nothing catastrophic happened.

Ernest Moodie told the Jamaica Observer that about mid-morning on Tuesday he was busy excavating a section of his yard off Newleigh Road (just outside the Mandeville Town Centre) when he came across what he thought was an old bowling pin.

“… But after taking it out of the ground and shaking it, the dirt fell out and I ended up with the fin in my hand then I realised it is some kind of ordnance,” he said on Wednesday. “So me hurry up [and] put it down.”

He explained that he called his property owner to inform him of the interesting discovery.

Moodie, who had been using a pickaxe, believes he was fortunate although not frightened that the tool did not come into contact with the bomb.

“It is not really anything special for me. As a Rastaman me nuh really in a the excitement and thing, but it was a kind of historic moment and I’m glad nothing worse didn’t happen, because considering that it could have been detonated at the head by the pickaxe — I have to give thanks,” he said.

War-era bombs down the years have been found at construction sites in different parts of the world, some of which detonated resulting in people being injured.

Head of the Manchester police Superintendent Lloyd Darby told the Observer on Wednesday that bomb experts believe the explosive weapon, which was retrieved and safely detonated at Vernamfield in Clarendon, dates back to Word War II some 76 years ago.

Moodie said where the bomb was found was in close proximity to an old fireplace which is now being renovated to build a koi pond.

The property owner, who asked not to be named, told the Observer that the area was evacuated after the police, Bomb Unit and Jamaica Defence Force arrived at his home.

“Based on the type of bomb that they saw, they were suggesting that people be evacuated and not be near, about 500 metres away from it. They secured the site until the bomb squad decided to come and dispose of it,” he added.

He believes the explosive weapon was dropped from a bomber.

“It is the one that they drop from the plane with the fins. I guess when it fell here it never hit the right spot and it never detonated. It is just right there and after a time it got buried,” he suggested.

He added that he is not concerned about finding other bombs on his property.

“I’m not really concerned, because I’m not going to do anything major here apart from the renovation of the waterfall and then the koi pond,” he said.

Renowned businessman Joseph Charles Swaby, the operator of the Black River Safari, believes the bomb could have been at the location from before World War II.

“I don’t believe that bomb is from World War II. I believe it was from World War I,” he said.

“Those lands behind the new Mandeville Hotel going all the way back to [where] the Villa Road Primary School is now and going around into the Newleigh Avenue, Wesley Road (area) was a British Military Barracks before World War I,” he said in reference to the history of Mandeville.

He suggested that there might be more bombs in close proximity to the one found on Tuesday.

“There could be more of those explosive devices there and with people now excavating and digging up and building, this thing should be properly investigated,” he said. “It must be ascertained how that object got there, why it was there and from when it was there.”