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War Legacy: 500-Kilogram Bomb Found in Augsburg, No Danger
🇩🇪 Germany /Disasters & Emergencies

War Legacy: 500-Kilogram Bomb Found in Augsburg, No Danger

From Die Zeit · () German

Translated from German and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Newswire From a news agency Outcome reported
  • Construction workers found a roughly 500-kilogram World War II bomb near railway tracks close to Augsburg’s main station.
  • Bomb-disposal specialists determined that the device had no detonator, so they prepared it for removal without defusing it.
  • Police initially sealed off the area, but about 200 residents were allowed to return after authorities ruled out a major evacuation.

A 500-kilogram bomb from World War II was found near Augsburg’s main railway station, but the discovery did not lead to another large-scale evacuation. Specialists quickly determined that the device no longer had a detonator.

Police sealed off the area around the bomb after construction workers found it on Monday. Experts from the Munich bomb-disposal service then examined the unexploded ordnance and prepared it for removal. The city said, "The bomb poses no danger."

Around 200 people who had initially been required to leave their homes were able to return. Because the bomb did not need to be defused, authorities avoided the extensive evacuation that such a find can normally trigger.

Augsburg regularly uncovers unexploded wartime bombs because Allied forces heavily bombed the city during World War II. The city’s most demanding operation took place on Christmas Day in 2016, when about 54,000 residents left their homes while specialists defused a 1.8-ton bomb. That evacuation ranked among Germany’s largest since the war.

The bomb poses no danger.

— City of AugsburgThe city explained why a major evacuation and bomb-defusing operation were unnecessary.
About this summary

Originally published by Die Zeit in German. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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