Berlin WWII bomb sparks mass evacuation
Berlin, April 20: A large-scale evacuation is to take place in Berlin on Friday to allow experts to defuse a World War II bomb, police said.
The area to be cleared includes Berlin Hauptbahnhof -- the central railway station, an army hospital, the economy and transport ministries and the embassies of Indonesia and Uzbekistan, the BBC quoted the German police as saying.
Rail company Deutsche Bahn and other transport operators have warned of large-scale disruption for trains, trams and buses in the area.
The police say there is no immediate danger from the 500 kg British bomb, which was found on Heidestrasse last Wednesday. The operation to defuse the device will take place around midday, the BBC said.
The buildings will be cleared from 9 a.m. in an 800m radius from the construction site where the bomb was discovered.
Flights to and from Tegel airport -- about 7km away -- will not be affected, authorities said on Thursday, although planes coming in to land will avoid flying over the site.
Thousands of unexploded bombs from the 1939-45 war are found every year.
Tegel, which is Berlin's busiest airport, was briefly closed in August 2017 after the discovery of a Russian World War II bomb. In September, patients at hospitals in Frankfurt were evacuated to allow the controlled explosion of another huge wartime bomb.
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases; Total tally now 52
ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.
