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Town at standstill for bomb defusal

DPA/The Local
DPA/The Local - [email protected]
Town at standstill for bomb defusal
Empty platforms at Oranienburg station on Friday morning

Authorities evacuated 1,700 people from their homes early on Friday morning after an unexploded bomb from World War Two was found in Oranienburg, north of Berlin.

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A statement from the town hall said that the bomb was around a metre underground.

It contains around 30 kilogrammes of explosives and an impact fuse from an original payload of 250 kilogrammes.

Police evacuated a 600-metre radius around the bomb, an area which includes businesses, schools and daycare centres as well as the train station, which will be out of service during the defusal.

A disposal team from the Brandenburg state ordnance disposal service (KMBD) hopes to have made the bomb safe by midday.

In 2013 an American 250-kilogramme bomb found on the Havel river bed in Oranienburg had to be made safe with a controlled detonation, resulting in a spectacular explosion.

7,000 people were evacuated.

Brandenburg is the German state with the largest number of unexploded World War Two bombs, and disposal teams are constantly searching for them.

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