Commuter traffic at one of France’s busiest train stations came to a complete halt Friday morning after workers discovered an unexploded World War II bomb under the tracks north of Paris’ Gare du Nord.
The French Transport Minister, Philippe Tabarot, told French broadcaster Sud Radio that travel throughout the day was expected to be “strongly disrupted,” urging travelers to postpone their trips.
He added that there was “no fear” or risk of explosion, stressing that procedures were in place for defusing and removing such bombs.
The incident disrupted all train services, including local metros, commuter rails, and national and international train services.
Eurostar confirmed to NBC News that it had cancelled all trains to and from Paris, including those to London, Brussels and Amsterdam, until noon local time (6 a.m. ET), adding that traffic would resume once the police had completed its “mine clearance operations” and safely disposed of the bomb.
The European train operator encouraged all passengers to travel on another day, later adding that they could exchange their tickets for free to travel at a different time or date in the same travel class.
Trains between London and Amsterdam, London and Brussels, and Brussels and Marne La Vallée near Paris were running normally, Eurostar added.
Workers removing dirt uncovered the unexploded bomb in the train tracks in the Seine-Saint-Denis region, about a mile and a half north of Gare du Nord, at around 4 a.m. local time, according to a post on X by the H line, one of the trains operated by the French National Railways.
Police cleared the area and cordoned off the site shortly after.
Just before 5 a.m. local time, the RER-B train line posted on X that “the bomb disposal experts have just arrived to secure the area and evacuate the elements.”
Unexploded bombs dating back to World War I and II are regularly discovered around France.
In 2019, a bomb weighing nearly a thousand pounds was found at a construction site at Porte de la Chapelle, near the Gare du Nord, causing temporary disruption to Eurostar trains and the evacuation of almost 2,000 people.
The French authorities later determined that the bomb was likely dropped by the British Royal Air Force in April 1944, targeting Nazi-occupied Paris before the D-Day landings in Normandy, according to the British newspaper, The Telegraph.
