French authorities evacuated thousands near Paris as bomb disposal experts worked to neutralise a dangerous World War II-era explosive.
COLOMBES: Bomb disposal experts worked to neutralise a World War II-era explosive in a Paris suburb on Sunday, prompting the evacuation of thousands of residents from the area.
Nearly 800 police officers cordoned off the site in the northwestern suburb of Colombes where specialists were attempting to deal with the device, which was first discovered on April 10.
An initial attempt to remove the bomb’s detonator was unsuccessful, leading experts to plan a controlled detonation in a two-metre deep pit, an operation police said was expected to take several more hours.
Residents living within a 450-metre radius of the bomb were instructed to leave their homes early on Sunday and move to local reception centres, with authorities expecting to allow them to return later in the day.
Local official Alexandre Brugere had previously described the planned operation as “risky” and requiring a “high level of preparation” when speaking about it on Thursday.
Unexploded ordnance from World War II is still regularly discovered across Europe, particularly in Germany where bombs are frequently found on construction sites eight decades after the conflict ended.
The incident follows a similar discovery in 2025, when a 500-kilogramme wartime bomb halted all traffic at Paris’s Gare du Nord, the nation’s busiest railway station.
