BERLIN police evacuated thousands of people and shut down the main train station as a precaution while they defused an unexploded Second World War bomb.

Some 10,000 residents and workers were forced to leave a square-mile area, including the train station, while bomb experts removed the 500-kilogram (1100lb) British bomb dropped during the war. The bomb was discovered during construction work

Trains were prevented from stopping at the busy station from 10am (9am BST) and through traffic was shut down at 11.30am (10.30am BST) before experts began their work, German rail operator Deutsche Bahn said. Some 300,000 travellers use the station every day.

Bomb disposal experts were able to successfully remove the detonator just after 1pm (12pm BST) and destroy it in a small, controlled explosion.

The evacuation area, which centred on the construction site north of the train station where the bomb was discovered during digging, also included a hospital, the new offices of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, and parts of both the economy and transportation ministries.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office and Germany’s parliament building are close by, but outside the zone.

Even 73 years after the end of the war, such discoveries remain common in major German cities.