About 20,000 people have had to temporarily leave their homes in a district of Frankfurt, central Germany, after the discovery of a 500kg bomb left over from the Second World War, firefighters from the city said on Monday.
The American bomb was discovered on Monday morning during work in the Bockenheim district, where a university campus is located. Explosives experts planned to deactivate the bomb on Wednesday, the fire department stated.
“About 20,000 people must leave their homes by Wednesday at 09:00,” the service said.
The ground in German cities remains littered with unexploded bombs that are regularly discovered on construction sites, 77 years after the end of World War II.
In 2017, the discovery in Frankfurt of a 1.4-tonne bomb led to the evacuation of 65,000 people.
In December 2021, a World War II bomb exploded on a construction site near a train station in the southern city of Munich, injuring four and interrupting rail traffic.
