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Bomb scare closes Arc de Triomphe roundabout

The roundabout surrounding the Arc de Triomphe, one of the busiest and most famous in Paris, was evacuated on Monday after a bomb scare.

Bomb scare closes Arc de Triomphe roundabout
File photo of French soldiers patrolling the area around the Arc de Triomphe in February. Photo: Bertrand Guay/AFP

The roundabout at Place de l'Etoile was closed after police received an anonymous call at 2pm stating there was a suspect parcel in the middle of the Arc de Triomphe.

"The whole area is being evacuated," a source told AFP. "We received an alert around 2.00 p.m. (1200 GMT) and bomb disposal experts are in place already but we still don't know if this was a false alarm or not," the source had said at the time.

The evacuation was expected to cause chaos for commuters as the traffic roundabout is hugely busy and both suburban and subway trains pass underneath it.

However, though the Metro and RER train services that run beneath the famous spot had not been evacuated, bus services in the area were disrupted.

Two hours later, after police had checked the area, the all clear was given and traffic returned to the roundabout.

Bomb scares are fairly regular occurrences at Paris's famous tourist landmarks. In March the Eiffel Tower had to be evacuated after an anonymous caller claimed there was a bomb at the sight.

France has stepped up national security in the wake of its military intervention in Mali, which provoked various unspecified threats of revenge from Islamist extremist groups.

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WWII bomb found in Frankfurt safely detonated after mass evacuation

A massive World War II bomb found in Germany's financial capital Frankfurt was safely detonated in the early hours of Thursday, the city's fire service said, allowing tens of thousands of evacuated residents to return to their homes.

WWII bomb found in Frankfurt safely detonated after mass evacuation
Experts stand on mountains of sand, which were put in place to soften the force of the explosion of the WWII bomb in Frankfurt's Nordend. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Frank Rumpenhorst

The 500-kilogram unexploded bomb was unearthed during construction work on Wednesday in the densely populated Nordend area of the city, a location firefighters said made it a “particular challenge” to remove.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper reported the ordnance had been discovered right next to a children’s playground at a depth of about two metres (6.5 feet).

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

Its report said the controlled blast, which happened just after midnight, “sounded like thunder rumbling” and left a hole three metres deep and ten metres wide.

Firefighters said that they had covered the bomb with 40 truckloads of sand before detonating it, in order to minimise damage to the surrounding buildings.

Around 25,000 people had been asked to evacuate the area, including the occupants of a nearby community hospital’s neonatal ward.

Among residents who took shelter at a skating rink was 29-year-old Tobias, carrying his pet cat in a cage.

He said he had heard the news over a police loudspeaker and been ordered to leave his home immediately, causing a “bit of stress”.

Barbara, 77, told AFP the news was “a bit of a shock, we don’t expect that”.

However, building works in Germany regularly unearth unexploded World War II ordnance, 76 years after the conflict’s end.

Seven bombs were defused in 2020 on land near Berlin where Tesla plans to build its first factory in Europe for electric cars.  

READ ALSO: WWII bomb in Frankfurt triggers 30m high water fountain

Other bombs were also discovered last year in Frankfurt, Cologne, and Dortmund.

In Frankfurt, the discovery of a 1.4-tonne bomb in 2017 led to the removal of 65,000 people, the biggest such evacuation in Europe since 1945.

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