The German city of Cologne is moving 20,500 people in its largest evacuation since World War II, after officials discovered three massive, unexploded bombs. <\/p>\n
The American bombs \u2013 two 20-ton weapons and another that weighs 10 tons \u2013 were found in a shipyard on Monday, the city said, causing a huge \u201cdanger zone\u201d to be sealed off on Wednesday morning. <\/p>\n
A hospital, two retirement centers and the city\u2019s second largest train station were among the facilities emptied out. Schools, churches, museums and two of the city\u2019s cultural landmarks \u2013 the Musical Dome theater and the Philharmonic Hall \u2013 also fell within the evacuation zone. <\/p>\n
The discovery of unexploded weapons is a frequent phenomenon in Cologne, which was decimated by Allied bombing during World War II, but no operation of this size has been carried out since the end of the war, the city said. <\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone involved hopes that the defusing can be completed by Wednesday,\u201d city authorities said in a statement. \u201cThis will only be possible if all those affected leave their homes or workplaces early and stay outside the evacuation area from the outset.\u201d <\/p>\n
The city told residents to \u201cstay calm (and) prepare yourselves\u201d for the evacuation, recommending they visit friends or family and avoid workplaces in the sealed-off area. <\/p>\n
Officials said they \u201ccannot make any reliable predictions\u201d about how long the operation will take, adding that specialists cannot begin to defuse the bombs until the entire area has been evacuated. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you refuse, we will escort you from your home \u2013 if necessary by force \u2013 along with the police,\u201d the city\u2019s statement said. <\/p>\n
Allied nations conducted 262 air raids of Cologne during World War II, killing approximately <\/strong>20,000 residents <\/strong>and leaving the city in ruins. Nearly all of the buildings in the Old Town were destroyed, as were 91 of the city\u2019s 150 churches. <\/p>\n A massive reconstruction effort took place after the war, with the Old Town rebuilt and major landmarks restored. <\/p>\n But small evacuations still take place on a regular basis when unexploded ordnances are found. Around 10,000 residents had to leave their homes in October when another American bomb was found, and in December, 3,000 people were asked to evacuate. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The German city of Cologne is moving 20,500 people in its largest evacuation since World War II, after officials discovered three massive, unexploded bombs. The American bombs \u2013 two 20-ton weapons and another that weighs 10 tons \u2013 were found in a shipyard on Monday, the city said, causing a huge \u201cdanger zone\u201d to be <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16986,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16985","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}