The discovery of a huge unexploded World War II-era bomb caused transportation chaos in Paris on Friday, including the suspension of high-speed train links with London and Brussels and the closure of a vital road artery into the French capital. Rail services were also halted at France’s busiest train station, upending commuters’ workdays and travelers’ weekend getaway plans, as bomb-disposal experts worked to make the half-ton explosive device safe.
The cascade of transportation woes first hit morning rush-hour train services before also spreading to the road network, with Paris police closing the A1 highway that feeds into the north of the city, as well as sections of the capital’s always-busy ring road, as the bomb-disposal operation dragged on.
Eurostar, operator of sleek high-speed trains through the Channel Tunnel that joins England with the European continent, announced the cancellation of all its services linking its Paris hub at Gare du Nord, France's busiest rail station, to the U.K. and Belgian capitals. Scores of commuter, regional and high-speed trains between Paris and towns and cities in northern France were also canceled.
Travel plans thrown into disarray
Gabrielle Cotton, a tourist from the U.S. state of Missouri, was traveling by train from Amsterdam in the Netherlands to Paris but got no further than Brussels.
“I heard the girl next to me — her parents called her and said that there was a World War II bomb found in the train station,” she said. “They told us we had to get off in Brussels.”
Retired Parisian Michel Garrot also found himself stranded with his wife in the Belgian capital.
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“There’s no solution. We’re going to call the hotel and stay one more day. And change our train ticket,” he said.
At Eurostar’s hub in London, St. Pancras station, passengers scrambled for alternatives. Fridays are invariably busy with thousands of weekend travelers. Paris-bound passengers were advised to try taking trains to Lille in northern France, or fly.
Bride-to-be Charlotte Liddell had a bachelorette party — her own — to get to in Paris and wanted to join friends already in the French capital.
“It’s the hen do without the hen!” she said. “We’re very upset, but it’s so out of our control.”
Another traveler, Lee Bailey, said Eurostar offered him a free rebooking or a refund, and an apology, but no compensation.
“I’d like to go to a Michelin (starred) restaurant in Paris on their dime, but that’s not happening, apparently,” he told Sky News.
Eurostar said it “sincerely apologizes for the disruption and understands the inconvenience this may cause."
The bomb was dug up overnight
Workers laboring overnight on a bridge-replacement project spotted the half-ton bomb before dawn Friday, after it was found by an earth-moving machine at a depth of about 2 meters (six feet), between train tracks to the north of the Gare du Nord station, in the Seine-Saint Denis region that borders northern Paris, the national rail operator SNCF said.
Bomb disposal services arrived within the hour and set up a 200-meter (yard) security perimeter, later extended to 500 meters.
When morning rush-hour travelers later started arriving at Gare du Nord to catch trains, they were greeted by bright-red signs warning of disruptions, lines of passengers seeking information and ticket-exchanges, and barriers blocking access to the Eurostar terminal.
The Gare du Nord habitually hosts 700,000 travelers per day, making it the busiest rail hub in both France and Europe, the SNCF says. As well as towns and cities across northern France and the Paris suburbs, the station also serves Paris’ main airport and international destinations, including London, Brussels and cities in the Netherlands.
A deadly legacy of World War I and II
Bombs left over from the battles fought in France and its skies in both world wars are regularly unearthed, even more than a century later, although it's rare that they cause such widespread disruption in people-packed Paris.
In World War II, Allied forces' bombing raids flattened towns and cities in the Normandy region northwest of Paris but didn't wreak destruction on the same scale on the French capital. Still, factories, train lines and other targets in and around Paris were bombed repeatedly, killing more than 3,600 people and wounding thousands more, according to city archives.
The Interior Ministry says that since World War II's end in 1945, disposal teams have defused 700,000 air-dropped bombs and made safe nearly 50 million mines, shells and other explosive devices.
