Potsdam residents evactuated as WW 11 bomb defused

Some 5,000 residents of Potsdam in Germany were evacuated from their homes today while explosives experts defused a 250-kilogram (550lb) US Second World War bomb, police said.

Much of Potsdam, outside Berlin, was sealed off and hundreds of stores and businesses were closed to allow for the removal of the bomb, which was found during excavation work on the grounds of a hospital.

Nearly 500 of the hospital’s patients were brought to a gymnasium for about six hours while disposal experts safely defused the bomb, police said. Other residents waited in schools and other gymnasiums.

Potsdam is the capital of Brandenburg state, which surrounds Berlin, and the former residence of Prussian kings.

Based on historical records, city officials believe the bomb was dropped in April 1945, about a month before the war’s end.