A team of navy divers has detonated a suspected World War II "dummy bomb" that's believed to have been sitting on Darwin Harbour's seabed for up to 80 years.
Footage released by the Australian Defence Force shows the controlled explosion, which was performed on Monday afternoon.
Commercial divers originally found the suspected bomb last Wednesday, with authorities declaring a 250-metre exclusion zone around the object as a precaution.
A team of navy divers — known as Clearance Dive Team One — were then dispatched to Darwin to locate and safely deal with the weapon.
But these efforts were complicated after the team was unable to find it on the sea floor.
Commercial divers subsequently relocated the weapon.
The executive officer of Clearance Dive Team One, Lieutenant Matthew Smith, said "significant tidal streams" and poor visibility brought challenges.
"Once the divers located it, from the assessment of it being a potential dummy bomb unit, we then used plastic explosives to lay on top of the item and then we [did] a controlled detonation remotely," he said.
He said the operation "provides us with the confidence the entire item has been disposed of safely".
Despite corrosion and marine growth, Defence said in a statement that the item was identified as a "potential dummy bomb historically used by aircraft in targeting practice".
Bomb found during survey works
The now-exploded device is suspected to date back to World War II, when Darwin was subjected to two years of bombardment by the Japanese.
The deadliest attack came on February 19 1942, when a Japanese raid killed 236 people in the Northern Territory capital.
The latest find came about as surveyors scoped out the sea floor around the proposed Darwin Ship Lift.
The object was found about 330 metres south of Darwin's East Arm barge ramp, according to the Northern Territory's Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Logistics.
It is far from the first dangerous reminder of the bombing of Darwin, with a mortar found on the side of one of the city's busiest roads in 2015.
