The evacuation of thousands of Hanau apartments because of a World War II bomb is apparently proceeding quickly. 700 rescue and relief workers are currently deployed there. Hanau's mayor Claus Kaminsky (SPD) has expressed optimism that the evacuation of the affected areas will be completed by 13 p.m. After that, the defusing could begin. He assumes that the 17,000 residents could return to their homes in the late afternoon, Kaminsky said.

Jan Schiefenhövel

Editor at the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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The 500-kilogram English explosive device was discovered on Thursday at a construction site in the residential area on Teichweg in the North-West district. The crisis team of the city administration has set a security zone of about one kilometer, which must be cleared for the defusing of the bomb, as the city has announced.

This exclusion zone includes the part of the residential area northwest, known in Hanau as Rosenau, as well as the western and northern parts of the city center. By 12 o'clock this area should be cleared. The defusing itself is scheduled for lunchtime.

For the hours of evacuation, the city provides a contact point for those who have to leave their homes. For this purpose, the August-Schärttner-Halle on Martin-Luther-King-Straße, which has been open since the morning, was prepared. From the bus station at Freiheitsplatz shuttle buses run free of charge to the hall in the morning. If you need help leaving your home, you can contact the citizen telephone of the administration at 06181 / 67660-2000.

Retirement homes have already been vacated

The St. Vincent Hospital is also located in the security zone. This does not have to be cleared, as the crisis unit has decided. Instead, patients are brought to safety inside the building, namely in rooms that are not located in the direction of where the bomb was found. Also in the restricted circle are four old people's homes, which were already vacated on Saturday. The residents were taken to other homes or to emergency shelters in the Mittelbuchen multi-purpose hall, in the Bürgerhaus Wolfgang and in the former Underwood barracks. According to the administration, 700 helpers, full-time paramedics and volunteer supporters, were deployed.

Numerous bus lines are also affected by the closure in the city area. Because a railway line is in the security zone, the local trains from Hanau via Maintal to Frankfurt no longer run from 12 o'clock.

Only a week earlier, a bomb from the Second World War had also been discovered in Hanau, namely during construction work on the premises of the Heraeus company. For this purpose, the eastern part of the city center was evacuated, 16,000 Hanauers had to leave their homes. This bomb was not so easy to neutralize, so the evacuation dragged on. It was not possible to defuse them, i.e. to remove the detonator. Therefore, the bomb had to be detonated in a controlled manner. For this purpose, a sand hill was piled up above it, which was weighed down with water containers. During construction work, aerial bombs from the World War are repeatedly found in Hanau, because the city was violently attacked at the end of the war. On the night of 19 March 1945, the city centre was destroyed.