Oberhausen (dpa / lnw) - In Oberhausen and Duisburg, the evacuation of more than 4,000 people began on Thursday morning. They have to leave their houses because a 20-hundredweight bomb from the Second World War is to be detonated in a controlled manner in the afternoon. According to the city, it was not possible to defuse the bomb found near the Emscher in the Oberhausen district of Holten.
At 1:00 p.m., the dud should first be taken to another location, as city spokesman Martin Berger told the German Press Agency in the morning. The bomb then comes into a deep hole in which, among other things, water cushions are placed. "Then everything is filled up with tons of sand before it can be blown up." According to Berger, this could only be done later in the afternoon around 5 p.m. by the explosive ordnance clearance service of the Düsseldorf district government.
Before that, around 2,700 people in Oberhausen and around 1,600 in Duisburg must have left their homes. From midday, around 19,000 residents in both cities are also asked not to leave their houses and apartments within a radius of 1,000 to 2,000 meters.
Numerous roads in the vicinity of the site, local rail transport including the Oberhausen-Holten train station and, from 1 p.m., the Autobahn 3 from Oberhausen to Frankfurt are affected by the closures from 12 p.m. The A3 will then be completely closed between the Oberhausen and Oberhausen-West motorway junctions until it is blown up. The Oberhausen-Holten exit is closed after 12 p.m.
