The device, which was inert, was removed by the police explosive ordnance disposal unit.

The information revealed by the Tribune de Genève was confirmed by Henny Martinoni, spokesperson for the Geneva police.

The discovery was made by divers working on dyke maintenance. At first they thought it was a simple tank, but they then realised it was a shell.

+ Public asked how to recover dumped munitions in Swiss lakes

The workers immediately alerted the police. The Bains des Pâquis, a popular open-air public swimming area, were evacuated as a precaution between 11.45am and 12.30pm, while the disposal unit went to work.

Translated from French by DeepL/ts

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at ...

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo certified by the Journalism Trust Initiati

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at ....