The police successfully defused the explosive device, which weighs more than 1,000 pounds and was found near tracks north of the French capital during landscaping work.
Traffic was expected to slowly recover at one of France’s busiest train stations on Friday evening after bomb-disposal crews defused an unexploded World War II bomb that had caused travel chaos after it was discovered north of Paris.
The bomb was discovered in the Saint-Denis suburb during overnight work on tracks that lead into the Gare du Nord, a major Parisian transit hub that serves northern France and other parts of Europe, including Britain. Authorities halted all train traffic at the station after the discovery, causing disruptions that rippled across the English Channel.
“This was not a trivial operation,” Philippe Tabarot, France’s transportation minister, told reporters in Paris after the bomb was defused, adding that more than 300 police officers had been deployed to clear and secure a broad perimeter around the device, which weighed more than 1,000 pounds.
The bulky, cylindrical, rock-encrusted bomb was discovered around 3:30 a.m. about a mile and a half from the Gare du Nord, France’s national railway company said in a statement. Workers were landscaping at a bridge renovation site when an earth-moving machine revealed the bomb, which had been buried about six and a half feet underground.
It is about three feet long and includes more than 400 pounds of explosive material, the company said, adding in a travel notice that “extensive earthworks” were necessary to safely defuse it. The police also temporarily closed off sections of a nearby road and a highway.
