A roadworker was killed on Monday when he struck and detonated a powerful World War II bomb while digging up a stretch of highway in southern Germany, police said.
The explosion near Aschaffenburg in Bavaria threw the one-tonne vehicle that was drilling into the asphalt into the air and killed the driver on the spot, a police spokesman in nearby Wuerzburg said. Seven passing cars were damaged by the force of the blast, which ripped a hole eight metres (26 feet) wide and 2.5 metres deep in the road. Pieces of metal lay scattered hundreds of metres from the scene.
The police said four roadworkers and a motorist were suffering from severe shock.
The busy A3 highway, which links Wuerzburg to Frankfurt, was closed, causing major traffic jams in the area.
The police said explosives experts were examining pieces of shrapnel to determine what kind of bomb it was.