WEB EXTRA: Explosive devices detonated in busy Murrayville urban area

Police, firefighters and B.C. Ambulance Service paramedics were on standby at the site of the former Township hall on Tuesday morning as the RCMP’s Explosives Disposal Unit blew up a pipe bomb assembled by a teenage boy.

The device, said Langley RCMP Cpl. Forbes Cavanagh, was discovered by a Langley man who placed it in the trunk of his car, and drove it to the abandoned parking lot of the old hall on 222 Street, between Fraser Highway and 48 Avenue.

Const. Patrick Davies confirmed that the bomb-making paraphernalia brought in by the man included chemicals, ball bearings and duct tape. The device had not been fully assembled into a bomb, he added.

The incident unfolded some time after 10 a.m. , but it wasn’t until after 1 p.m. that the first explosion rocked the Murrayville area.

Less than an hour later, another explosion was carried out to ensure that the device was fully disabled, Cavanagh said.

The device is believed to contain TATP. Its main ingredients are triacetone triperoxide and peroxyacetone, which are highly explosive and take the form of a white crystalline powder with a distinctive acrid smell.

Highly susceptible to heat, friction and shock, TATP has been called the Mother of Satan, and gained notoriety from its apparent link to the London bombings in July, 2005.

Earlier this year, a youth trying to make the chemical in crystalized form was badly injured when the device exploded in his hands. In the following days, a number of explosive device were discovered in different areas of Langley City.

Cavanagh said that a large area around the old hall site was cordoned off “to make sure everyone was safe.”

Two Township employees, Scott and Adam, who were working on the volleyball court immediately west of the RCMP building, watched from the safety of Murrayville Library as an EDU member, clad in a black protective suit, walked to a safe, sandy area where the device was blown up.

The police were “very professional and certainly not setting anybody up for a scare,” Scott said.

Cavanagh had a word of warning for anyone who finds an explosive device. “When people find something suspicious in or around the house, or in an around a business, leave it where it is and give the police a call. There is no point putting yourself and others in danger.”

At about 3:30 p.m., police were heading to the man’s house to detonate another device.

The Times learned late Tuesday that part of the underground parking lot at Autumn Ridge was behind police tape. A police officer was guarding four garbage dumpsters at the Murrayville complex, half a block west of the former Township hall. It is not known if the two incidents are related.