An unexploded American bomb from World War II, found near the stadium of German soccer team Mainz 05, was successfully defused Friday.
The 1,102-pound bomb was found near a roundabout in Mainz during construction work for a planned expansion of a university in the town, city officials said. They did not specify what type of bomb was found.
About 3,500 people nearby were evacuated in advance of the bomb defusal Friday, including employees of local companies, the staff and students at three kindergartens, and the residents of a retirement home and a refugee accommodation center, city officials said.
The defused bomb will be taken to a storage facility in Koblenz before being transported to a bunker in Luneburg Heath.
“There it is dismantled in a bunker and cut into slices,” before being burned in a blast furnace, Alexander Schafer from the bomb squad told regional broadcaster SWR, as translated by Google.
Mr. Schafer told SWR he had not handled a bomb this large in three years.
While an office and the fan store at the team’s arena were closed during the bomb disposal, according to a social media post by the team, Mainz 05’s home game against FC Köln on Sunday was not affected by the discovery.
The two teams sit at the bottom of the rankings in the top-flight Bundesliga as of Friday, with Mainz 05 qualifying for a playoff against the third-best team in the second flight to avoid relegation and FC Köln currently slated to be demoted.