As many as 13,000 residents in Germany’s Dusseldorf were asked to leave their homes temporarily after a World War II-era bomb was found, reports emerged on Tuesday.

According to reports, a one-tonne shell was discovered on August 7-8 during the working hours near the city zoo following which the authorities in Dusseldorf took prompt action with police and bomb squad launching an operation to dispose the unexploded bomb. Roads within the evacuation zone were also cordoned off during the disposal operation.

Earlier, in 2017, a 1.4 tonne bomb found in Frankfurt forced the evacuation of 65,000 people and later in December 2021, a second world war-era bomb exploded at a construction site near Munich station.

It may be mentioned that the US and British air forces dropped 2.7 million tons of bombs on Europe during the second world war, half of which was dropped on Germany, between 1940 and 1945.