GRIM LEGACY

Huge World War II Bomb Sparks Mass Evacuation of Major City

Some 17,000 people have been told to leave.

A chunk of central Dresden was cleared out Wednesday morning after a 550-pound British World War II bomb was found near a busy bridge—still armed with a detonator. Authorities ordered the evacuation of a roughly 3,300-foot radius around the Carola Bridge after the explosive was uncovered during construction work, according to a statement from Polizei Sachsen, which oversees the Saxony region. “It is equipped with a detonator and must be defused on site,” the department said, announcing the area would be empty of residents by 9 a.m. local time. By early Wednesday, police confirmed they were clearing the zone. “As soon as there are no more people in the area, the defusing operations will begin,” they posted to X. It was later defused by a detonation expert. Germany is still routinely digging up wartime bombs, a grim legacy of the war. Entire neighborhoods are sometimes evacuated while specialists defuse the decades-old ordnance. In June, some 20,000 people were evacuated from their homes in Cologne after three unexploded bombs were unearthed, marking the country’s largest postwar evacuation. Officials in Dresden have not yet said when residents can return.

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Leigh KimminsReporter

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