FOR 60 years the people of Sheerness in the UK have been living next to a time bomb. A lethal mixture of unstable second world war bombs - amounting to 1400 tonnes of TNT - is in the rusting wreck of the Richard Montgomery, a US cargo ship which lies half submerged on a sandbank in the Thames estuary, just over 2 kilometres from the Kent town.

If the cargo explodes, the blast will bring death and devastation to a wide area. The UK government, though, has always played down the risk. Only seven months ago David Jamieson, the UK transport minister responsible for shipping, said that the Richard Montgomery "appears to be in a stable condition". But 60 years after it sank, a New Scientist investigation, based partly on recently released government documents, reveals that the cargo is still deadly. A collision with another vessel, a terrorist or even ...