Traffic between France and Italy through the Fréjus tunnel was interrupted for two hours this Wednesday morning, the time to defuse and extract a bomb dating from the Second World War in the town of Fourneaux (Savoy).
"Operation started at 8:30 am, finished at 9.45 am, it is an operation carried out smoothly and without any difficulty", welcomed the prefecture.
The "English bomb of about 500 kg is on its way to a specialized center in the Great East where it will be destroyed", he was specified.
# Mine clearance l The mine clearance operation went smoothly.
The A43 motorway and the Fréjus tunnel are once again open to traffic.
Residents located within the #security perimeter can return to their homes.
pic.twitter.com/QzS0mI56UT
- Prefect of Savoy (@ Prefet73) September 23, 2020
An important safety device had been planned to deal with "any grain of sand" in this kind of delicate operation: a safety perimeter of 400 m, 120 people evacuated from their homes, the A43 motorway closed from Modane as well. than the Fréjus tunnel, gendarmerie, firefighters and deminers mobilized.
Discovered in 2019, the device was first buried for a "safety" and mine clearance operations had been postponed because of the Covid-19 epidemic.
On Wednesday morning, the bomb was extracted and the priming process was removed and destroyed.
