Today's Edition
PARIS (The New York Times News Service)
Traffic ground to a halt at one of France’s busiest train stations on Friday after an unexploded World War II bomb weighing more than 1,000 pounds was uncovered just north of Paris, causing travel chaos that extended across the English Channel.
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.
"Traffic has been interrupted since this morning to and from Gare du Nord” at the request of the Paris police, France’s national railway company SNCF said in a statement, adding that trains would start running again once the police completed demining operations.
The bomb was discovered around 3:30 a.m. about a mile and a half from the Gare du Nord, the company said. Workers were landscaping at a bridge renovation site when an earth-moving machine revealed the bomb, which had been buried about 6 1/2 feet underground.
It is about 3 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.
Mine-sweeping crews established a large security perimeter, which included sections of a nearby road and a highway that the police closed off.
Traffic on high-speed and commuter railways was stopped for hours. All Eurostar trains that connect Paris to London, Brussels and Amsterdam were canceled, stranding travelers at the Gare du Nord, which served more than 226 million travellers in 2023.
