Hamburg, Germany: The discovery of a World War II-era bomb led to the evacuation of Hamburg’s trendy Sternschanze district. The bomb was disarmed successfully by the officials.
Fire officials said that, more than 5,000 people were evacuated to safety from the 300-meter (984-foot) exclusion zone. Police also cleared restaurants and bars in the area.
Residents within a 500-meter warning radius were told not to stay outside, to keep windows and doors closed, and to move to rooms away from the danger zone.
Shortly after midnight, the fire department, which had been called in for a major operation, said on social media that the bomb had been defused.
Hamburg Police said on X that, “ALL CLEAR: The aerial bomb in the Sternschanze was successfully defused! The measures taken by the fire department and Hamburg Police are gradually being withdrawn.”
The discovery of the bomb also disrupted rail traffic, as the Sternschanze S-Bahn station, which is particularly busy on weekends, was also in the evacuated area.
Bomb defused without complications
The bomb was found during construction work on the grounds of a primary school. According to Hamburg police, the evacuation measures took a few hours, partly because a retirement home bordered the exclusion radius.
According to a final statement from the fire department says that, they took about 30 minutes and the defusing went without complications and Emergency accommodation was set up in a secondary school for the people who had to leave their homes. Around 220 people came to the emergency shelter.
Earlier, a World War II-era bomb in Cologne prompted a massive evacuation. After the evacuation of numerous residential buildings and several clinics in the city, the US bomb discovered on 9th of October was detonated in a controlled manner.
Germany is accustomed to finding unexploded World War II munitions from Allied and Soviet bombing campaigns. Most are defused without incident by bomb disposal experts.