Around 20,000 evacuated in Cologne as major bomb defusal operation underway

Around 20,000 people are being urgently evacuated from their homes in Cologne, Germany, after three unexploded Second World War bombs were discovered.

After the city undergoes its largest postwar evacuation, experts will be brought in to defuse the US-manufactured bombs which were found on Monday in a shipyard in the district of Deutz.

Two of the bombs are 1,000kg and the third is 500kg. All are equipped with impact fuzes, meaning they are intended to detonate upon contact with a hard surface.

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The evacuated area includes the entire old city, 58 hotels, three Rhine bridges, a railway station, a hospital, museums, two care homes and the town hall, city authorities said. The bombs are set to be defused after the evacuation, which began at 8am local time (7am UK time) on Wednesday.

“We are sealing off and evacuating the danger zone within a radius of 1,000 meters from 8am on Wednesday,” authorities said. “Around 20,500 residents and a large number of working people are affected by the evacuation.”

Roads on either side of the river Rhine will be closed as authorities seal off the large evacuation zone. The Unesco World Heritage Cologne Cathedral sits just outside the area.

Tents and help centres, staffed by aid organisations, have now been set up for those who have ben evacuated from their homes and workplace, as Dusseldorf district’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Service defuses the ordnance.

The city warned that there will be many blue-light ambulances throughout the city as patients who are sick or mobility-impaired are relocated from the Eduardus Hospital.

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“Everyone involved hopes that the defusing can be completed by Wednesday,” Cologne city authorities added. “This will only be possible if all those affected leave their homes or workplaces early and stay outside the evacuation area from the outset.”

Bomb defusals are common in Cologne, which was heavily targeted by the Allied countries in their bombing campaigns across Nazi Germany. Around 20,000 people were killed during the aerial bombardments of Cologne, which suffered 262 separate air raids throughout the Second World War.

It has been reported that around 35 million tons of bombs were dropped on the city during the war.