Christmas bomb defused

Photo: The Canadian Press

UPDATE 12:35 p.m. Dec 25

Explosives experts on Sunday defused a large World War II aerial bomb in the southern German city of Augsburg — clearing the way for thousands of evacuated residents to return to their Christmas celebrations at home.

City police tweeted that they had "good news at Christmas" just before 7 p.m. local time Sunday. They had earlier been unable to say how long residents would have to stay away.

Some 32,000 households with 54,000 residents in the city's historic central district were forced to leave by 10 a.m. Christmas morning so experts could handle the bomb.

They had to clean seven decades of muck off the bomb so they could find and disable its three detonators. The munition's large size — 1.8 tons — suggested it was a so-called blockbuster of the type dropped by British forces, with the aim of blowing surrounding buildings apart so that accompanying incendiary bombs could start fires more easily.

Original story Dec. 24

More than 54,000 people in the southern German city of Augsburg will have to leave their homes Christmas morning while authorities defuse a giant 1.8-ton aerial bomb from World War II.

The city's medieval cathedral and City Hall are in the area to be sealed off. Police said Saturday that no one would be allowed into the surrounding streets after about 8 a.m. Sunday and everyone must be out by 10 a.m.

Police say it was impossible to say exactly how long it would take to make the bomb safe.

Schools will be opened for people who can't stay with relatives or friends. Police said that people can bring their pets to shelters and that public transportation will be free Christmas morning.

Finding bombs from the war is not unusual in Germany. This evacuation, however, is even bigger than the 45,000 people temporarily evacuated to remove a bomb in Koblenz in 2011.

Large parts of Augsburg were destroyed on Feb. 25-26, 1944, when the city was attacked by hundreds of British and U.S. bombers.