POTSDAM, Germany About 12,000 people were evacuated from Potsdam on Thursday as explosive experts worked to remove an unexploded World War II bomb from the Brandenburg state capital.
The city center, including the main train station and Brandenburg state government offices, was sealed off for about 4 1/2 hours as the 250 kilogram (550-pound) American bomb was being defused and removed.
The bomb was found Tuesday on a construction site in the city, the former residence of Prussian kings just outside Berlin.
It is not unusual for crews to find unexploded bombs, relics of Soviet and Allied bombardments before Germany's official surrender in May 1945.
In one of the more spectacular finds, a 250-kilogram British bomb was plucked in 2002 from under the lower ring of seats during renovations at Berlin's Olympic Stadium — the same stadium where the World Cup soccer final was played in July.
Potsdam had escaped the war relatively unscathed until an Allied bombing raid on April 14, 1945 destroyed much of the city.
The bomb was the fourth found in the vicinity in the past two years.
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