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BMW

Volcanic ash fallout halts work at BMW factories

German luxury automaker BMW is partially halting production at several sites because of spare parts not arriving due to the turmoil in European air traffic, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

Published: 20 April 2010 12:20 CEST
Volcanic ash fallout halts work at BMW factories
Photo: DPA

The Munich-based firm said that three German factories were affected, with some production stopping at Dingolfing later on Tuesday and at Munich and Regensburg on Wednesday and Thursday respectively.

Spokesman Marc Hassinger said the stoppage would mean that around 7,000 fewer vehicles would be made than normal. Foreign production and deliveries to customers remained unaffected.

“We aim to return to normal on Friday,” he said. “The problem concerns parts for car interiors and electronics.”

German authorities extended the closure of its airspace by six hours to 1800 GMT Tuesday due to the giant plume of volcanic ash from Iceland that has wrought havoc in Europe since last week.

As well as affecting millions of air passengers, the stoppage was also hitting the German economy, Europe’s biggest, “to a significant degree,” Economy Minister Rainer Brüderle said on Monday.

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MUNICH

Four injured as WWII bomb explodes near Munich train station

Four people were injured, one of them seriously, when a World War II bomb exploded at a building site near Munich's main train station on Wednesday, emergency services said.

Published: 1 December 2021 16:41 CET
Smoke rises after the WWII bomb exploded on a building site in Munich.
Smoke rises after the WWII bomb exploded on a building site in Munich. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Privat

Construction workers had been drilling into the ground when the bomb exploded, a spokesman for the fire department said in a statement.

The blast was heard several kilometres away and scattered debris hundreds of metres, according to local media reports.

Images showed a plume of smoke rising directly next to the train tracks.

Bavaria interior minister Joachim Herrmann told Bild that the whole area was being searched.

Deutsche Bahn suspended its services on the affected lines in the afternoon.

Although trains started up again from 3pm, the rail operator said there would still be delays and cancellations to long-distance and local travel in the Munich area until evening. 

According to the fire service, the explosion happened near a bridge that must be passed by all trains travelling to or from the station.

The exact cause of the explosion is unclear, police said. So far, there are no indications of a criminal act.

WWII bombs are common in Germany

Some 75 years after the war, Germany remains littered with unexploded ordnance, often uncovered during construction work.

READ ALSO: What you need to know about WWII bomb disposals in Germany

However, most bombs are defused by experts before they explode.

Last year, seven World War II bombs were found on the future location of Tesla’s first European factory, just outside Berlin.

Sizeable bombs were also defused in Cologne and Dortmund last year.

In 2017, the discovery of a 1.4-tonne bomb in Frankfurt prompted the evacuation of 65,000 people — the largest such operation since the end of the war in Europe in 1945.

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