Over 54,000 people have been evacuated from the German city of Augsburg after a 1.8-tonne bomb was found.
The bomb was dropped during World War II and has caused the city’s medieval cathedral and city hall to be sealed off while authorities work to diffuse it.
Spiegel reported in 2012 that there are thousands of unexploded bombs from decades gone by in Germany, and that they pose a growing threat in German society “because their detonators have corroded to the point where they have become too dangerous to defuse.”
Today’s evacuation is one of the biggest in German history. According to Newstalk, over 45,000 people were evacuated from Koblenz when a bomb was found in 2011.
The operation involves no less than 4000 police and firefighters according to reports from Germany.
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