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BMW

Brake problem sparks BMW motorcycle recall

German luxury automaker BMW on Tuesday launched a global recall of 122,000 motorcycles owing to front brake problems.

Brake problem sparks BMW motorcycle recall
Photo: DPA

A BMW spokesman said the company had uncovered a risk of leaks in the braking systems of its K 1200 GT motorcycles and other models built on the same base. The recall concerns motorcycles built between August 2006 and May 2009, some of which have already been checked.

“Over time, it emerged that even corrected braking systems did not resolve the problem 100 percent,” he said.

Vibration generated by the motorcycle’s operation were found to cause leaks that affected the front brake, the company said, while rear brakes continued to function normally.

BMW has not heard of accidents linked to the problem but “would gladly have foregone having to make another recall,” the spokesman said.

The group is the leading manufacturer of luxury cars in the world and also sold 87,306 of its upmarket motorcycles last year.

That is only a fraction of the 1.29 million automobiles delivered in 2009 however, and shares in the group did not suffer from the announcement, gaining 2.42 percent to €39.65 on a firmer Frankfurt stock exchange. The DAX index of German blue-chips closed up 1.47 percent.

The auto industry has been hit by several major recalls this year, with the world’s biggest carmaker, Toyota, hit by several technical problems that forced it to recall around 10 million vehicles, mostly in the United States.

Among German automakers, Volkswagen recalled nearly 200,000 vehicles in Brazil in February, while Porsche asked owners of its new Panamera model to bring them back into the shop for seatbelt checks.

US car giant General Motors has had hood problems with more than 160,000 all-terrain Hummers and Nissan of Japan has recalled more than 134,000 cars sold under its luxury brand Infiniti in the US to fix airbags.

Honda’s luxury division Acura has said a power steering hose on some 167,000 TSX models should be replaced to avoid a “smoke or a fire” hazard.

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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.

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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