one (still) explosive city
You know, when you're in this city it is really easy to put all the war history in that little drawer marked "A long, long time ago.." It's an incredible story, an unbelievable amount of horror and terror, but it feels like ancient history. Especially when you're sitting in a bar somewhere listening to the best of Berlin electronica.
Yesterday, though, it was again brought much more into the present when an excavater working on a garden in Wilmersdorf uncovered a 500kg WWII bomb buried only a meter below the surface.
These crop up every now and then. A few times a year one will be uncovered and diffused. Yesterday's was apparently more dangerous, with a time-delayed chemical detonator that couldn't be diffused with the normal techniques.
So 5000 people were evacuated to spend the night in highschools and gym halls, U-bahn and S-bahn stopped and the city ring autobahn blocked. The detonator was blown up this morning successfully, and the bomb removed safely. Thankfully.
But it's just one more of those events that makes you realise how recent this history actually is. And how it still impacts us today.
It truly is an amazing place that can hammer that home so effectively.