The bomb must have weighed 500 kilos and contained 200 kilos of explosives. It was found two meters underground at a construction site in the suburb of Saint Denis, which is about 2.5 kilometers north of Paris.
200 people were evacuated from their homes in Saint Denis. At the Gare du Nord station, around 500 trains were stopped, a stop that will have an impact on 600,000 people.
Several cities were affected
The stop not only affected travelers in France but also prevented trains from Brussels and London, among others, whose goals were the French capital.
Gare du Nord is one of Europe’s largest train stations and serves as a hub for northbound trains in France and the continent.
12 hours after it was found one could harm the bomb and around 18 at 18 local time, train traffic could be gradually resumed.
– We are happy and relieved that it’s over, said France’s Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot afterwards.
Not unusual
But this is not the first time that a Bomb from World War II has emerged in unexpected places around Europe.
“It doesn’t happen every day, but that happens,” Fabien Villedieu, chairman of the French trade union Sud-Rail, tells the New York Times.
In February, over 175 exercise bombs were found from the war during a playground in northern England. In 2018, thousands of evacue Berlin was forced to find a 500 kilo heavy bomb near Berlin Hauptbahnhof.
See the bomb in the clip above.