Huge WWII-era bomb successfully defused in Frankfurt

Construction workers found the 1.8-ton (4,000-pound) British bomb on Tuesday. Officials

Police said bomb disposal experts have successfully defused a huge World War II-era bomb in the German financial capital Frankfurt that forced the evacuation of more than 60,000 residents.

A tent covers the area around an unexploded British World War Two bomb which was found during renovation work on the university's campus in Frankfurt, Germany. (REUTERS)

Hospital patients and the elderly were among those affected in what was Germany’s biggest evacuation in recent history.

Similar operations are still common 72 years after the war ended. About 20,000 people were evacuated from the western city of Koblenz before specialists disarmed a 500-kilogram US bomb on Saturday.

Construction workers found the 1.8-ton (4,000-pound) British bomb on Tuesday. Officials ordered residents to evacuate homes within a 1.5-kilometer (nearly a mile) radius of the site in Germany’s financial capital.

Dozens of ambulances lined up early on Sunday to pick up anyone unable to independently leave the danger zone.