A Wisconsin donation center was urgently evacuated Friday morning after an employee found a “cluster bomb” and gun ammunition among items donated to charity.
“Employees quickly followed safety protocols by notifying management and store and donation center security teams, who then evacuated the building as a precautionary measure for shoppers, donors and employees,” Goodwill Industries of Southeast Wisconsin reported, according to the New York Post. in a statement” on Sunday.
Early Friday morning, employees at the Janesville, Wisconsin-based nonprofit were wide-eyed when they found a “cluster bomb” and gun ammunition while taking inventory of items donated to charity.
However, the use, production and storage of this type of explosive has been banned since the United Nations Convention on Cluster Munitions came into force in 2010, the local newspaper said.
It is designed to “disperse or release explosive submunitions weighing less than 20 kilograms each,” according to the treaty signed by 125 nations, he added.
The entire block surrounding the charity was evacuated for several hours on Friday, waiting for the bomb to be recovered and safely destroyed by authorities. No one was injured in the incident.
It is the second time in a month that authorities have had to deal with old explosive devices, while in Scotland two fishermen reportedly fished out a World War II grenade in early October, the NY Post reports.