The 500kg bomb from the Second World War in the Frankfurt district of Gallus was rendered harmless by the ordnance disposal service of the state of Hesse on Sunday afternoon, so evacuation was lifted at Equinix’s Frankfurt 5 facility.

As FX News Group has reported, the Equinix FR5 IBX facility had to be evacuated as a World War II projectile was discovered nearby during construction works.

On Sunday afternoon, Equinix confirmed it received the all-clear from Government Authorities and the evacuation has been lifted. Equinix personnel have now returned to the FR5 IBX and customers are welcome to schedule appointments.

“There has been no health or safety impact to any personnel and no impact to the operations of FR5 or any other local Equinix facilities during the evacuation”, Equinix says.

The Frankfurt Fire Department explained that the 500kg bomb was deactivated by the ordnance disposal service today. Before that, almost 13,000 people had to leave a defined danger zone as a precaution. Due to the location of the bomb and the role of Frankfurt as a traffic junction, the defusing also had an impact on many long-distance connections of the German railways.

For a number of reasons, the evacuation operation was more complex than with similar defuses, which are by no means uncommon in Frankfurt. Above all, due to the design and condition of the bomb, the ordnance clearance service (Darmstadt Regional Council) was unable to make a prediction of how long the actual defusing would take.