Unexploded World War II bomb closes busiest train station in Europe

by Mick the Ram

There is major disruption for travellers in northern Europe today (7 March) after an unexploded bomb was discovered on the tracks leading to the Gare du Nord terminal in Paris.

Police immediately halted all rail traffic in and out of the station, which is the busiest in Europe, so the cancellation of services has caused travel chaos for tens of thousands of people.

The bomb was found “in the middle of the tracks” at 4am, around 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles) from the train hub during earth-moving maintenance work, in the area of Saint-Denis, a suburb of northern Paris. 

Minesweepers have been dispatched to the site and the operation is currently on-going.

Incredibly busy transport hub

Gare du Nord sees some 700,000 passengers pass through it on a daily basis, hosting not only the the Eurostar trains to London, but also serving international destinations north of France such as Brussels and cities in the Netherlands, as well as the main Paris airport.

Additionally there are frequent regional and suburban routes in and out all the time, as well as other transit modes for the regular commuters.

“No fear” of explosion

French Transport Minister Phillipe Tabarot warned traffic would “strongly disrupted” throughout the day, although he hoped that a limited service might be possible by late afternoon.

He added that local residents and people near the train stations should have “no fear” of a risk of explosion, stressing that there are procedures in place for defusing and removing such devices.

Eurostar suspends all services to Paris for entire day

A spokesperson for Eurostar confirmed that all trains heading to Gare du Nord had been suspended for the day. The cross-Channel operator initially just cancelled their services up until lunchtime, but it soon became clear that the timetable would not be able to proceed throughout Friday (7 March).

In an update presented to its customers, they explained that traffic would only be able to resume “once the mine clearance operations currently being organised by the specialised services of the Paris Police Prefecture have been completed.”

They also announced that passengers could exchange tickets to travel at another date or time in the same class – subject to availability.

Area was targetted by RAF

The station was extensively used by the occupying German forces during the Second World War, right up until the liberation of Paris in 1944. Leading up to that point, the area in its surrounds was regularly bombed by the RAF, as were many factories in the Paris suburbs.

On 21 April 1944 a raid on northern Paris specifically targeted railway junctions and tracks, in what later became clear was part of the build up to D-Day.

That bombing operation is said to have continued for a full two hours and was in its initial stages, very precise.

Nearby square named after specific raid

However, the heavy blanket of smoke that was created later led to many devices falling off target and as was common at the time, a large number of the bombs also failed to detonate.

There is actually a square close to where the latest discovery has been made that has been named “Place du 21 April 1944” in honour of the hundreds of civilian who sadly fell victim to the raid on that night.

Bombs left over from both World Wars are regularly discovered all around France, but it is very rare to find them in such heavily populated locations.