Some 22,000 people were allowed to get back into their homes early on Thursday after a wartime bomb was defused overnight in the German city of Hildesheim in Lower Saxony, the mayor said., Sputnik reported.
"Within a comparatively short period of time we managed to evacuate a very large area with a population of almost 20,000 – a huge success for a 800-strong force, who conducted the evacuation allowing for the bomb to be defused as fast as possible," Ingo Meyer said in a statement.
Hildesheim police said a World War Two-era British bomb was discovered during construction works on Wednesday afternoon in the historic inner part of the city, prompting evacuation within a 1,000 meter radius. The mayoral office said schools close to the site would reopen this morning.