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The Midlands was rocked by a second bomb scare in just four days – after a pensioner dug up a Second World War artillery shell as she was gardening .

Residents were evacuated and Army bomb disposal experts scrambled when the 71-year-old, named only as Irene, unearthed the explosive with her hoe in Stickley Lane, Lower Gornal, Dudley , on Thursday morning.

Her neighbour Keith Hemmings called the police when she asked him for his opinion on what she had found.

He said: “I had given Irene some runner beans to plant in her garden.

Shortly after she knocked on my door saying she wanted me to take a look at something she had dug up.

“I picked it up - it was covered in soil.

“Then I panicked after realising what I thought it was – an artillery shell.

“I gently put it down and called police.”

The Army’s Explosive Ordnance Team removed the device, which was not believed to have been live, and left the scene before 2pm.

It happened after Birmingham’s streets were gridlocked by the discovery of a giant wartime bomb on a building site in Priory Road, Aston, on Monday.

Key routes, including the A38(M) Aston Expressway, were closed and hundreds of residents ordered to leave their homes.

The device was safely detonated on Tuesday afternoon.

Another Stickley Lane resident, Liane Price, 27, said: “I had just returned from doing my shopping when I saw police in the road.

“They had closed the road off and evacuated everyone.

“I didn’t even have chance to put my food in the freezer.

“They said an old artillery shell had been found in a neighbour’s back garden.

“Everyone was shocked, especially because of what happened with the bomb in Birmingham.”

A West Midlands Police spokesman said: “Officers were alerted at around 11.20am on Thursday after a resident uncovered what was thought to have been an old Second World War artillery shell in a garden.

“The road was closed and some houses were evacuated as a precaution.”