MILAN – Around 54,000 people were evacuated from the southern Italian city of Brindisi on Sunday as experts worked to defuse a World War Two bomb, authorities said.
Corriere della Sera said the operation was the biggest peacetime evacuation in Italy with over 60 percent of the city’s residents forced to vacate a “red zone” in a radius of 1,617 meters from where the bomb was found.
The British bomb, believed to have been dropped on the city in 1941, is one-meter long and contains 40kgs of dynamite, authorities said. It was found by chance last month during refurbishment works at a cinema theater.
The city’s airport, train station, two hospitals, and a prison were shut down and evacuated as part of the operation, which authorities expect to be completed around lunchtime.(Reuters)
