Unexploded WW II bomb in Paris halts domestic, continental travel for several hours
France's transport minister says discovery led to 500 trains from busiest Paris station being cancelled
The discovery of a huge unexploded Second World War-era bomb near the tracks severed Paris's high-speed rail links with London and Brussels on Friday, affecting weekend getaway plans and causing cascading travel disruptions for several hours.
Train services were scheduled to resume beginning at 6 p.m. local time, officials said. It wasn't immediately clear how the bomb was made safe or disposed of.
Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said a total of almost 500 trains were cancelled and the disruption affected about 600,000 people at the Gare du Nord, France's busiest train station.
"We're delighted and relieved that all this has come to an end," he said, adding that a major highway, the A1, was immediately reopened after it was closed for several hours.
Tabarot said the successful operation required the mobilization of 300 police officers.
Earlier, the minister said the bomb weighed half a tonne and that the security perimeter set up after its discovery spanned 500 metres. Workers found it before dawn while doing earth-moving near the tracks in the Seine-Saint-Denis region that borders Paris to the north.
Eurostar, operator of sleek high-speed trains that run through the Channel Tunnel between the U.K. and the European continent, had announced the cancellation of all of its services to and from Gare du Nord in Paris, which serves international destinations such as the European Union capital of Brussels and the Netherlands, as well as the main Paris airport and many regional French destinations.
After authorities gave the all-clear, Eurostar said it expected normal traffic between Paris and Brussels and between Paris and London on Saturday. The company said it will run two extra trains, one leaving London to Paris in the morning, the other from Paris to London in the afternoon.
Commuters scramble to make alternate plans
French national rail operator SNCF said the Gare du Nord usually sees 700,000 travellers per day, but on Friday commuters were greeted with bright red signs warning of disruptions.
At London's St Pancras International railway station, Eurostar's London hub, travellers scrambled for alternatives. Fridays are invariably busy there with thousands of people leaving and arriving for weekend breaks. Passengers were advised to try taking trains to Lille in northern France or to fly to Paris.
"We're looking up flights, but our options are limited," said Lauren Romeo-Smith, part of a group that had planned a birthday weekend in Paris.
France's Interior Ministry said that since the war's end in 1945, disposal teams have defused 700,000 air-dropped bombs and made safe nearly 50 million mines, shells and other explosive devices.
Allied forces' bombing raids flattened towns and cities in the Normandy region northwest of Paris but didn't wreak destruction on the same scale on the French capital.
Still, factories, train lines and other targets in and around Paris were bombed repeatedly, killing more than 3,600 people and wounding thousands more, according to city archives.