World

Huge Second World War bomb defused in Frankfurt

A warning poster seen at the place where a Second World War bomb was found in Frankfurt, Germany, on Sunday. Picture by Andreas Arnold, dpa via Associated Press
A warning poster seen at the place where a Second World War bomb was found in Frankfurt, Germany, on Sunday. Picture by Andreas Arnold, dpa via Associated Press A warning poster seen at the place where a Second World War bomb was found in Frankfurt, Germany, on Sunday. Picture by Andreas Arnold, dpa via Associated Press

BOMB disposal experts successfully defused a huge Second World War bomb in the German financial capital Frankfurt that forced the evacuation of more than 60,000 residents, police said.

Hospital patients and the elderly were among those affected in what was Germany's biggest evacuation in recent history.

Similar operations are still common 72 years after the war ended. About 20,000 people were forced to leave the western city of Koblenz before specialists disarmed a 1,100lb US bomb on Saturday.

Construction workers found the 4,000lb British bomb on Tuesday.

Officials ordered residents to evacuate their homes within a mile radius of the site in Germany's financial capital.

Dozens of ambulances lined up early on Sunday to pick up anyone unable to independently leave the danger zone.