A newly-discovered RAF ‘blockbuster’ bomb has forced 70,000 people from their homes in Germany in the biggest post-war evacuation yet.
The 1.8-tonne British bomb, which German media nicknamed ‘Wohnblockknacker’ (blockbuster) has the ability to wipe out whole streets and flatten buildings and was discovered on Tuesday during building works.
Police have since been guarding the bomb site, which is close to the city centre and just 1.5 miles north of the main Zeil shopping area.
Ella Wichmann pushes suitcases as she leaves her apartment in the evacuation area as evacuation measures are under way in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany
Police insist it is safe leaving the bomb in the ground until disposal experts dismantle the device
A warning poster seen at the place where a WWII bomb has been found in Germany
Frankfurt’s security chief Markus Frank said homes and buildings within less than a mile’s radius of the site were to be cleared by 6am and residents will likely need to stay away until 6pm.
‘We must have this area completely cleared by 8am,’ Frank said.
The Westend district is home to many of Frankfurt’s top bankers, including European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi, who is known however to spend his weekends away from the German city.
Two major hospitals are also within the evacuation zone, including one with a big ward of newborns. Staff at the affected hospitals began transferring patients and infants to other medical centres beginning Saturday.
Members of a family with young kids pull suitcases as they leave the evacuation area in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany, this morning
A newly-discovered RAF ‘blockbuster’ bomb has forced 70,000 people from their homes in Germany in the biggest post-war evacuation. Pictured: A heavy armed police truck is seen during the evacuation
Police officers speak with residents who have not yet left their apartments in the evacuation area
Police officers get their instructions as 60,000 people in Germany’s financial capital on Sunday morning
A warning sign to alert residents that a historic bomb has been discovered in Frankfurt
Experts will defuse the British World War Two bomb later today while all residents have been moved out of the city for safety
‘We have almost finished the evacuation in the hospitals, but for retirement homes, it’s going to take a bit more time,’ a spokesman for the city’s firefighters said.
The massive bomb in question is an HC 4000, a high capacity explosive used in air raids by Britain’s Royal Air Force during World War II and contains 1.4 tonnes of explosives.
Although police have said there is no immediate danger, the bomb’s massive size prevents them from taking any chances during the disarming process.
More than 70 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs are regularly found buried in Germany, legacies of the intense bombing campaigns by the Allied forces against Nazi Germany.
The ‘blockbuster’ explosive was discovered during renovations on Frankfurt University’s campus
The Westend district is home to many of Frankfurt’s top bankers, including European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi, who is known however to spend his weekends away from the German city
On Saturday, 21,000 people had to be evacuated from the western city of Koblenz as bomb disposal experts defused an unexploded American World War II shell.
In May, 50,000 residents were forced to leave their homes in the northern city of Hanover for an operation to defuse several WWII-era bombs.
One of the biggest such evacuations to date took place on Christmas Day 2016, when another unexploded British bomb, containing 1.8 tonnes of explosives, prompted the evacuation of 54,000 people in the southern city of Augsburg.
The 1.8 tonne ‘Blockbuster’ bomb was dropped by a Lancaster on Frankfurt in a raid on 1944. Officially categorized as an HC 4000, the Blockbuster earned its nickname because of its ability to destroy whole apartment blocks.
Police confirmed today: ‘Due to the large size of the bomb, extensive evacuation measures must be taken.’
The massive bomb in question is an HC 4000, a high capacity explosive used in air raids by Britain’s Royal Air Force during World War II and contains 1.4 tonnes of explosives
Although police have said there is no immediate danger, the bomb’s massive size prevents them from taking any chances during the disarming process
More than 70 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs are regularly found buried in Germany, legacies of the intense bombing campaigns by the Allied forces against Nazi Germany
On Saturday, 21,000 people had to be evacuated from the western city of Koblenz as bomb disposal experts defused an unexploded American World War II shell
It is estimated that 150,000 bombs lie unexploded beneath German towns and cities and they grow more unstable with every passing day. Dozens of people have been killed and injured in explosions in the past decades and thousands placed in danger.
In 2011 falling water levels on the River Rhine in Koblenz exposed two mammoth RAF bombs capable of causing catastrophic damage if they detonated: some 45,000 people were evacuated.
A bomb from an RAF or American Air Force plane from the conflict is discovered on average once a day across the country, sometimes as many as three times a day, costing authorities tens of millions of pounds a year.
The Allies rained 2.7 million tons of bombs on Germany between 1940 and 1944. The academic Journal of Mine Action estimates that as much as HALF of them failed to do their job.
Many of these bombs are of a type containing a vial of acetone in the fuse which was designed to burst on impact. The fluid was meant to trickle down and dissolve a celluloid disk keeping back the cocked firing pin that then ignites the TNT inside.
Those components, as well as the plastic parts of other detonators, are disintegrating at an alarming rate.
Experts warn that within a decade bombs will begin to detonate by themselves – or will be too unstable to defuse if discovered.
That would mean controlled explosions on site with colossal damage to infrastructure around and about.
The massive bomb was dropped more than 70 years ago from a Lancaster bomber, file photo