Three unexploded U.S. bombs from World War II were defused on Wednesday in Cologne after the German city’s biggest evacuation since the end of the war.
The bombs were unearthed on Monday during preparatory work for road construction. City authorities said that the discovered unexploded ordnances were two American 20-ton bombs and one American 10-ton bomb, each with impact fuses.
More than 20,000 residents were evacuated Wednesday from the city center. Experts defused the bombs within about an hour, city authorities said in a statement.
Even 80 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs dropped during wartime air raids are frequently found in Germany. Sometimes, large-scale precautionary evacuations are needed. The location this time was unusually prominent – just across the Rhine River from Cologne’s historic center.
Thomas Banneyer / AP
Significantly bigger evacuations have occurred in other German cities.
The evacuations included homes, 58 hotels, nine schools, a hospital and two nursing homes, several museums and office buildings and the Messe/Deutz train station. It also included three bridges across the Rhine, including the heavily used Hohenzollern railway bridge, which leads into Cologne’s central station. Shipping on the Rhine was also suspended.
Clearance to go ahead with defusing the bombs was delayed somewhat because one person in the historic center initially refused to leave their home, city authorities said.
Bombs from World War II have been discovered on battlefields and cities where fighting took place, often decades after the war ended. In March, a World War II bomb was found near the tracks of Paris’ Gare du Nord station. In February, more than 170 bombs were found near a children’s playground in northern England. And in October 2024, a World War II bomb exploded at a Japanese airport.