War is over - but WW2 Bombs continue to be found...

Thousands of Berliners had to find a place to sleep on Tuesday night after they were evacuated so police could defuse a 500-kilogramme (1,100-lbs.) bomb from the Second World War.

Tram lines and major roads were shut down and residents barred from their homes in Berlin's Wilmersdorf district for 16 hours while police bomb experts worked to defuse the complicated chemical detonator, police said on Wednesday morning.

Excavators found the bomb at a Mecklenburgstrasse construction site on Thursday afternoon, and police began evacuating the neighborhood at 10 pm. Residents were forced to stay at emergency accommodations or with family and friends.

The city mobilized a large-scale deployment of police, fire department and rescue workers that included some 400 emergency vehicles to help secure the neighbourhood. Water and gas companies were also alerted.

Bomb experts had initially hoped to defuse the bomb on site, but decided to transport it with a special vehicle to the nearby Wilmersdorf park to avoid having to evacuate a hospital near the bomb.

Police reported that the bomb was successfully defused via a controlled detonation early on Wednesday morning.

More than 60 years after the end of World War II, weapons recovery remains an important task for police and private companies throughout Germany. City-state Berlin and the surrounding state of Brandenburg, were some of the most heavily bombed parts of the country during the war.

The entire city of Berlin is considered potentially dangerous by bomb clean-up experts. Allied forces dropped more than 2.7 million tonnes of explosives across Germany during the war. Much of the ordnance did not explode and has become increasingly dangerous with time and corrosion.

DDP/The Local (news@thelocal.de)

In Berlin, an average of 900 explosive cleanup operations take place each year. Of these, about 100 unexploded bombs are deemed too dangerous for removal -- a job for "sprengmeister," explosives experts like Mehlhorn and Neumann, who blow them up on site.

Berlin, which was bombed heavily throughout the war and then captured by the Soviet army in a bloody battle in April and May 1945, has the most hidden bombs. The entire city is categorized as potentially dangerous.

The problem gets trickier with time as bombs corrode and destabilize. In an ongoing effort to find and remove the unpredictable relics, Luetzen's office pays private firms $2.87 million each year. The companies uncover an average of 87 tons of weaponry each year in public and private projects. In 2004 alone, workers found 160 bombs, 2,400 grenades, 1,500 explosive devices and 2,700 guns and other weapons.

4 Aug 08 18:01 CET

Evening traffic in Potsdam, Germany was severely affected after the entire city centre and the main train station were closed for removal of a 250-kilogramme World War II-era bomb found during road construction work on Monday afternoon.

Workers discovered the English bomb during work on a new bridge, municipal officials said. The main train station in the Brandenburg city just outside Berlin was closed at 3 pm. Some 3,000 people were evacuated to safety by local police so that experts could begin work on defusing the live bomb.

According to daily newspaper Berliner Morgenpost, a backhoe driver discovered the Allied bomb, which has a mechanical fuse. People within a 500-metre radius were evacuated because according to the city's experts, it could cause a "devastating explosion" and destroy the new bridge. The evacuation, which included a 17-story hotel, multiplex movie theatre, shopping centre and the train station, is expected to last until the early evening hours. The city was unable to say when the bomb would be defused.

Local transportation was rerouted around the evacuation, city officials said. Several thousand evening train commuters on 18 scheduled trains will be affected as all train traffic will be blocked between at least 6 pm to 8 pm.