Fused WWII Bomb Found In Berlin
About 2,000 people within a radius of 550 yards were evacuated from their homes Friday as a three-man team of experts defused a giant, unexploded World War II-era bomb discovered buried in a popular Berlin park.
Traffic was halted at midday on nearby roads and railways as well as on the Spree river during the defusing process, which took about an hour, police spokesman Uwe Kozelnik said. Airplanes headed for nearby Tempelhof airport were rerouted around the site.
The British-made bomb, a roughly 6½-foot-long canister packed with 1.3 tons of high explosive, was the biggest type dropped on Berlin. Four duds of that size have been found and defused previously, the last in 1967.
More than 50 years after World War II, bombs, grenades and other unexploded munitions are still uncovered regularly in Germany. Many have been unearthed in Berlin because of the construction boom that followed reunification in 1990, especially in the former communist eastern half of the city.
The latest bomb was found Wednesday in the eastern Treptow district during a routine sweep. Police said an explosion would have meant "everything within a radius of 300 meters, be it house, tree or horse, would be reduced to matchsticks."
"It's a disgrace" that such things are still lying around, said one evacuated resident, Klaus Leschinsky, 73. But he said his main concern was for the safety of the men defusing the bomb.
"I was bombed out during the war as a child, so I feel for them," he said.
Those living between 550 and 1,100 yards away were advised to open their windows and stay in the rear of their apartments if they chose not to leave.
Police vans with loudspeakers cruised the streets advising people of the potential danger.
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