WWII bomb halts traffic at busy Paris train station

Traffic at the Paris Gare du Nord train station was halted on Friday after a World War II bomb was found on tracks leading to France’s busiest terminal.

The unexploded bomb was found “in the middle of the tracks” about 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles) from the station overnight during maintenance work carried out in the northern Paris suburb of Saint Denis, the national SNCF rail company said.

The Gare du Nord station lies in the north of the French capital and is the country’s busiest train hub, hosting the Eurostar trains in addition to regional and suburban service, and seeing some 700,000 passengers daily, according to the SNCF.

The bomb “dated to the Second World War,” the RER B suburban train wrote in a post on X.

Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot warned that rail traffic at Gare du Nord would remain “heavily disrupted all day” on Friday, which usually sees an increase in commuters due to weekend travel.

Speaking to broadcaster Sud Radio, Tabarot called on travellers to “avoid going to the station” and postpone their trips, expressing hope that traffic could resume Friday afternoon.

All traffic to the train station, which serves international, high-speed and local connections, was halted as police worked to disable the device.

“Due to an object on the tracks at Paris Gare du Nord, we expect disruption to our services this morning,” Eurostar said in a statement. “Please change your journey for a different date.”

Some travellers expressed their surprise.

“It’s funny, I’ve just come back from Lorient where unexploded shells are discovered all the time,” said Chloe Ternand, referring to a town in western France.

This was not the first time that the discovery of a World War II bomb paralysed rail traffic in the French capital.

In 2019, the discovery of a wartime bomb interrupted traffic between the Saint-Lazare station and the western suburbs of Paris.