Germany Faces New Evacuation as War-Era Bombs Resurface

In a dramatic reminder of Germany’s wartime past, authorities evacuated around 20,000 people from central Cologne on June 5 after construction workers unearthed three unexploded World War II-era bombs.

The American-made explosives, two weighing 1,000 kilograms (2,204 pounds) and a third at 500 kilograms, were discovered in the Deutz district on the eastern bank of the Rhine River.

This marked the largest evacuation the city has seen since the end of WWII in 1945.

The bomb disposal operation forced the shutdown of road and train traffic, including three key bridges crossing the Rhine. A 10,000-square-meter evacuation zone included hospitals, nursing homes, nine schools, a TV station, and dozens of hotels.

Germany continues to uncover wartime ordnance, but incidents of this scale are rare. In 2017, Frankfurt evacuated 65,000 residents due to a 1.4-ton bomb, and in 2021, four were injured when a WWII bomb exploded unexpectedly in Munich.