No details were given of when the highly corroded device might have been dropped or by which side in any of the wars.
Nazaré harbour master Paulo Agostinho said that “everything points to it being a bomb containing about 200 kilos of H6”, an explosive three times more powerful than TNT.
The bomb was dragged up in the nets of the trawler ‘Mar Salgado’ when it was fishing off the coast of Nazaré, and was taken back to the port for investigation.
Measuring between 1.50m and 1.60m in length, the bomb was later taken back out to sea to be detonated under the supervision of the Navy, the Maritime Police and local lifeguards, at a depth of 20 metres.
The waters off Nazaré were made globally famous when American professional big wave surfer Garrett McNamara was photographed surfing a world-record 100 foot wave there in 2011.