A 100 metre exclusion zone had to be set up in Hornchurch after a suspected unexploded shell was dug up.
The shell was discovered in Herbert Road at the junction of Wingletye Lane on Saturday January 19 by workmen, who were carrying out work on nearby water mains.
David Walton, who made the finding said that he knew something was wrong when they hit something hard.
He said: “We pulled it out, but it didn’t look like anything that we had seen before.
“It looked like a bullet and we were all really worried.”
The men alerted the police who set up the temporary exclusion zone and advised people in the street to stay in their homes.
Bomb disposal experts took the device away and the workmen were later told that the shell was harmless.
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