Hours of travel delays end as authorities defuse unexploded WWII bomb near Paris’ Gare du Nord

The disposal of what Parisian police called an “excessively dangerous” unexploded World War II bomb, caused hours of transportation chaos on Friday on rail and road networks in the French capital.

The disruptions affected both domestic and international trains, with Eurostar high-speed services operating out of Paris’ busy Gare du Nord station to Brussels and London being suspended.

The bomb was dug up overnight, workers labouring on a bridge replacement project spotted the rust-eaten, dirt-covered bomb just before dawn. It was found by an earth-moving machine, which dug it out from a depth of about two metres, between train tracks to the north of Gare du Nord.

French national railway operator – SNCF – notified emergency police units of their discovery, and reported the suspicious object as a potential bomb. Upon closer examination, authorities did confirm that it was in fact a WWII era bomb.

“They just discovered a bomb, an object that seemed a bit strange to them on their site,” said Christophe Pezron, who heads the Paris Police Laboratory – including bomb disposal services.

“A team was sent out immediately, and we identified it as a 500-kilogram English bomb, an extremely dangerous object.”

Authorities say the bomb could have caused major damage had it exploded after workers inadvertently dug it up. They also noted that the task was delicate and required serious expertise to handle with deva and urgency.

“It’s always risky. It’s always dangerous to handle something that fell 4-thousand meters from a plane, that contains almost 300 kilos of explosives, and that didn’t work,” added Pezron.

“We don’t know why it didn’t work. So, yes, it’s dangerous, but it’s really the de-miners’ expertise that makes it possible to tackle and handle these objects.”

The police operation that the bomb safe before it was taken away triggered major disruption for hundreds of thousands of travellers and motorists.

The bomb was dug up near train tracks north of Paris, forcing a shutdown of the rail network serving Gare du Nord. A portion of the A1 highway – a major road artery into northern Paris – was also closed while police disposal officers worked for approximately 12 hours.

“We’re delighted and relieved that all this has come to an end,” Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot was able to finally declare Friday afternoon — 12 hours after the bomb-disposal police were first called — as roads reopened and rail services were progressively being restored.

“All of the northern part of our country was paralysed,” noted Tabarot.

Some 500 trains were cancelled in the process, impacting around 600,000 travellers in Gare du Nord alone. Trains carrying passengers from the UK, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium were also suspended, impacting even more travellers.

“I’ve had a long day because I got up before 6 o’clock this morning and got the train from Penzance (Cornwall) to Paddington (London) to catch the Eurostar,” said Tony, a traveller from the UK.

“A lot of the systems that Eurostar are using have crashed. So these are, they did send an email saying the train, you know, about the WWII bomb, and they cancelled the trains. But the link, you couldn’t get through to it because it had all crashed, so really I’m just sitting here (thinking) what to do really.”

“We had to get off in Brussels and so now we are in line trying to figure out how to get to Paris, we’re not müddet how we are doing it yet, but we would like to get there today, if possible,” said Gabrielle Cotton, an American tourist, traveling from Amsterdam.

France is no stranger to unexploded WWI and WWII bombs. Authorities regularly locate and destroy them – but, they’re usually not found in busy and urban areas.

Police say the bomb identified was a 500kg English bomb from WWII, the largest calibre bomb the Allies used from their arsenal which was consisted of 125, 250 and 500 kg bomb.

The bomb located near the Parisian train station is capable of causing extensive damage. Experts say a single bomb has a damage radius exceeding 1,000 metres. Authorities are thankful the lengthy defusal operation was successful and a major tragedy was avoided.

France’s Interior Ministry says that 700,000 air-dropped bombs and nearly 50 million mines, shells and other explosive devices were defused by disposal teams since the end of the Second World War. It is not clear how many WWI and WWII bombs are still left.