By Makini Brice and Charlotte Van Campenhout
PARIS (Reuters) -Paris’ Gare du Nord, Europe’s busiest train station, ground to a halt on Friday while an unexploded World War Two bomb was defused, causing the cancellation of all Eurostar trains for the day and huge disruptions to nearby traffic.
Railway workers found the 500 kilogram (1,100 lb) device 2 metres underground at around 0230 GMT in Saint-Denis, a northern Parisian suburb, during construction work on a bridge. Police say the area is known to contain “vestiges” of the war.
Although the bomb was found 2.5 km (1.6 miles) out from the station, it was located under the tracks, one of the network’s train lines wrote in a post on X.
Commuter trains and national and international services including Eurostar trains were all halted while bomb disposal experts were brought in to defuse the huge device.
Police evacuated 200 people living close to a security perimeter set up around the bomb, while others in the area were urged to stay inside throughout the operation, the department’s prefecture said.
Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot later announced that the demining operations were over and rail traffic would resume in stages from 1700 GMT.
Eurostar, which had to cancel all trains to and from Gare du Nord on Friday, said services would resume on Saturday. Its website advised travellers to reschedule their trips.
In addition to the huge disruption to train traffic, portions of the roads ringing the capital were closed.
Around 220 million passengers a year pass through Gare du Nord, travelling to and from destinations in northern France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, and across to London.
Clemence Fandard, an interface designer in Paris, said her 6:20 a.m. train to Amsterdam was initially delayed for 45 minutes before being cancelled.
“I had heard reports of these things happening from time to time,” Fandard said, adding: “We were unlucky!”
Another traveller, Kasman Ibrahimi, said he had planned to catch a train to Cologne in Germany from Gare du Nord but would now look for an alternative route.
(Reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout, Makini Brice, Antony Paone and Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Rachna Uppal and Hugh Lawson)
