Ambulances drive to the Eduardus Hospital in Cologne-Deutz to evacuate the hospital earlier than specialists defuse three unexploded U.S. bombs from World Warfare II that had been unearthed earlier this week in Cologne, Wednesday, June 4, 2025.
Henning Kaiser/DPA/AP
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Henning Kaiser/DPA/AP
COLOGNE, Germany — Three unexploded U.S. bombs from World Warfare II had been defused on Wednesday in Cologne after the German metropolis’s largest evacuation for the reason that finish of the battle.
Greater than 20,000 residents had been evacuated from the town heart earlier Wednesday after the bombs had been unearthed on Monday throughout preparatory work for highway building.
Consultants defused the bombs inside about an hour, metropolis authorities stated in a press release.
Even 80 years after the top of the battle, unexploded bombs dropped throughout wartime air raids are continuously present in Germany. Generally, large-scale precautionary evacuations are wanted. The situation this time was unusually outstanding — simply throughout the Rhine River from Cologne’s historic heart.
Considerably greater evacuations have occurred in different German cities.
The evacuations included properties, 58 lodges, 9 faculties, a hospital and two nursing properties, a number of museums and workplace buildings and the Messe/Deutz practice station. It additionally included three bridges throughout the Rhine, together with the closely used Hohenzollern railway bridge, which leads into Cologne’s central station. Transport on the Rhine additionally was suspended.
Clearance to go forward with defusing the bombs was delayed considerably as a result of one particular person refused within the historic heart initially refused to go away their residence, metropolis authorities stated.
