Germany – Another WWII bomb was discovered and defused Thursday, December 18, in the historic city of Potsdam which is situated the country’s capital, Berlin.
According to reports, the WWII ordnance, weighing 551 pounds [250 kilos], was unearthed during a construction work for a new headquarters of the state investment bank ILB in an area near the Potsdam railway station on Thursday morning. The said site where the bomb was found was close to the downtown area of the city as well as the Bradenburg state legislature. Workers had moved the bomb when bomb disposal experts came into the site to disarm it.
Individuals numbering to about 9,700 were promptly evacuated from the 800-meter radius evacuation zone imposed by the city government after the bomb’s discovery. Three old people’s homes, the train station and even the Bradenburg state parliament were included in the evacuated places. Because of this, a parliament session had to be postponed and pushed until January next year.
According to city officials, the said WWII bomb was successfully defused by evening of that same day. The operation lasted for forty-seven minutes and was described by the city’s Mayor Jann Jakobs as “quite challenging”.
After defusing the WWII ordnance, bomb disposal experts went on to scour through the area to see if there are still other buried unexploded munitions.
It can be remembered that during the Second World War, countless of ordnance were dropped by Allied war planes on Germany. That is why it is no surprise that unexploded WWII bombs still litter throughout German soil up until this day and are dug out from time to time.