Jovan Thomas, Pune
A World War II bomb was found in the western German city of Dusseldorf, causing around 13,000 residents to leave the city. The police and bomb squad discovered the bomb to be an unexploded one-ton shell.
The German media outlet Deutsche Welle reported that the bomb was found near the city zoo during working hours.
Authorities in Dusseldorf demanded that all residents who are within a 500-meter radius of the bomb’s presence evacuate the location. Roads were temporarily shut down during the time of operation. There were residents who had to carry their pets with them during the evacuation. The time for the completion of the disposal and lifting of restrictions remain uncertain. A local school provided rooms for affected residents to take refuge while the authorities were attempting to defuse the bomb.
DW reported that the discovery of the bomb led to the disruption of long-distance trains. In addition, a significant number of local buses and tram lines had to be halted.
This is not the first time that a bomb has been discovered in Germany.
In 2015, around 20,000 residents had to be evacuated from Cologne due to the discovery of a bomb. A 1.4-ton bomb was discovered in the city of Frankfurt in 2017, which resulted in 65,000 people being evacuated. Furthermore, 2021 saw a World War II bomb explode at a construction site near Munich’s station, which led to four people being injured.
According to Smithsonian Magazine, the air forces of the US and UK dropped 2.7 million tons of bombs on Europe, of which half were on Germany, during the Second World War from 1940 to 1945.
The Discovery of unexploded bombs happens regularly at construction sites and places of excavation in the ground of many cities in Germany, despite the conclusion of the Second World War 78 years ago.