WW2 bomb at Luxembourg station brings trains to a halt: Traffic expected to resume from 18:00hrs, railway operator says

LUXEMBOURG: (This story was updated with the time at which traffic is expected to resume, and that the bomb has been defused)

A bomb dating back to the Second World War at Luxembourg's central station brought railway traffic across the country to a halt on Wednesday, setting hundreds of thousands of cross-border workers up for travel chaos when they return home by close of business.

Authorities ordered a complete evacuation of the station, a hub for national rail traffic known widely as just "the Gare". The CFL national railway operator cancelled all trains to the north, to Germany and to France.

The bomb was defused at around 14.15hrs, the police said on Wednesday afternoon. The security perimeter has since been lifted and the entire area is gradually being reopened to traffic, police said.  

Trains are expected to gradually resume from 18:00hrs, the CFL said in an update on Wednesday afternoon, having earlier warned it would be 20:00hrs before services were restarted.

Photographs showed police blocking nearby bridges, while an explosives squad was on site to dismantle the explosive.

It is the second time a bomb was found near the central train station, which is undergoing major renovation work. In February, another bomb had to be defused after equally causing major disruptions to railway traffic.

The news comes after CFL said last week that a train tunnel in northern Luxembourg that suffered a roof collapse will be closed at least until December, as the railway company is exploring the causes of the accident.

Allied forces bombed the station on 9 May and 11 May 1944, when more than a hundred people died in the final stages of the fight against the Nazis.