German explosives experts started to defuse a massive World War Two bomb in Frankfurt on Sunday after tens of thousands of people evacuated their homes.
The bomb was discovered on a building site last week and around 60,000 people were ordered to leave their residences in what was Germany’s biggest evacuation since the war.
The work by bomb technicians started later than planned as some people refused to leave the evacuation area despite fire chiefs warning that an uncontrolled explosion would be big enough to flatten a city block.
More than a thousand emergency service workers helped to clear the area and a steady flow of people filed into a temporary shelter at Frankfurt’s trade fair site, enjoying bananas and beverages on offer. Others sat in cafes on the edge of the evacuation zone.
The device was found last week in the city’s leafy Westend neighborhood, home to many wealthy bankers. The evacuation area includes Germany’s central bank, the Bundesbank, where $70 billion in gold reserves are stored.
Police set up cordons around the evacuation area, which covered a radius of 1.5 km (roughly a mile).
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