World War II bomb was detonated in a controlled manner

More than 4,000 people were evacuated in Oberhausen and Duisburg on Thursday morning (October 13). They had to leave their homes because a 20-hundredweight bomb from the Second World War was to be detonated in a controlled manner that afternoon. According to the city, it was not possible to defuse the bomb found near the Emscher in the Oberhausen district of Holten.

The dud should first be taken to another location, as city spokesman Martin Berger said in the morning. The bomb then comes into a deep hole in which, among other things, water cushions are placed. "Then everything is filled up with tons of sand before it can be blown up." That could only be done later in the afternoon around 5 p.m. by the explosive ordnance clearance service of the Düsseldorf district government, said Berger.

Before that, around 2,700 people in Oberhausen and around 1,600 in Duisburg had to leave their homes. From midday, around 19,000 residents in both cities are also asked not to leave their houses and apartments within a radius of 1000 to 2000 meters.

Numerous roads in the vicinity of the site, local rail traffic including the Oberhausen-Holten train station and from 1 p.m. also the Autobahn 3 from Oberhausen to Frankfurt were affected by the closures from 12 p.m. The A3 was then completely blocked between the Oberhausen and Oberhausen-West motorway junction until the blast, and the Oberhausen-Holten exit was no longer passable from 12 p.m.

The 20-hundredweight bomb from World War II was detonated in a controlled manner in Oberhausen on Thursday evening. More than 4,000 people in Oberhausen and neighboring Duisburg were allowed to return to their apartments and houses after the detonation in the evening around 7:30 p.m. From 9:00 a.m. they had been evacuated from the danger zone within a radius of 1,000 meters from where the bomb was found. They were informed of this via loudspeaker announcements and the warning app NINA.

This article has been updated.