Berlin, Dec 4, IRNA - Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from the southwestern German city of Koblenz on Sunday after the discovery of a large World War II-era bomb, according to press reports

Koblenz was resembling a ghost town following Germany's biggest post-World War II
evacuation measures as up to 45,000 people have been ordered to leave the area.

The evacuees were being housed at schools, churches and other emergency shelters.

The operation to diffuse and remove two bombs, among them a 1.8-ton bomb that
is believed to have been dropped by the British air force, is slated to get
underway at 3 pm (1400 GMT) Sunday.

Around 2,500 people are involved in the operation, with rescue workers nationwide on standby in the event of an explosion.

Roads and rail links into Koblenz were to be blocked from early Sunday.

Removing thousands of unexploded bombs, hand grenades and artillery shells remains a full-time task for police bomb defusing squads across Germany, some 66 years after the end of World War II.

Thousands of people have been injured over the past six decades by World War II bombs, littered throughout Germany.

Last year, three experts of a bomb disposal team were killed and six people injured in the central German city of Goettingen when a World War II bomb exploded during attempts to defuse the weapon.