Italian city evacuates 54,000 people to defuse WW2 bomb

Around 54,000 people were evacuated from the southern Italian city of Brindisi on Sunday as experts worked to defuse a World War Two bomb, authorities said.

Corriere della Sera daily said the operation was the biggest peacetime evacuation in Italy, with more than 60 per cent of the city’s residents forced to vacate a “red zone” in a radius of 1,617 metres from where the bomb was found.

The British bomb, believed to have been dropped on the city in 1941, is 1 metre long and contains 40 kgs of dynamite, authorities said. It was found by chance last month during refurbishment works at a cinema theatre.