Germany's biggest bomb evacuation since World War II is scheduled for Christmas


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About 54,000 people from 32,000 households have to evacuate their homes in Augsburg, Germany, on Christmas morning so a bomb squad can remove a World War II-era British bomb that was discovered — unexploded — during construction work this week. This is the largest evacuation in the country since the 1940s.
The huge bomb requires a team of about 2,500 people to be safely defused, including police, firefighters, and first responders to address any potential injuries. Though inconvenient for holiday celebrations, the evacuation is scheduled for Christmas Day to take advantage of minimal traffic and flexible schedules. Evacuees will wait out the bomb disposal process in local schools and gymnasiums.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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