Skip to footer

Italy closes route over Brenner mountain pass to defuse WW2 bomb

Transportation out of the Brenner Pass on the Austrian-Italian border will be stopped Sunday in order to defuse an unexploded bomb dropped during World War II.

|
Siegele Roland/File
The Innsbruck station at the north end of the Brenner railway is seen here. Transportation out of the Brenner Pass on the Austrian-Italian border will be stopped Sunday in order to defuse an unexploded bomb dropped during World War II.
  • By Staff Reuters

| ZURICH

An unexploded bomb dropped from a U.S. airplane during World War Two will halt car and train transportation south of the Brenner Pass on the Austrian-Italian border on Sunday morning as explosives units defuse and dispose of the device.

Austrian autobahn police said on Saturday that the A22, a major north-south link between Italy and Austria, as well as the Brenner Pass highway and train connections would all be closed in both directions between 0830 CET (0730 GMT) to around noon.

A spokesman for the Austrian police said cars would be halted in a line for the duration of the disposal. There is no alternative route available during the closure, he said.

The spokesman said the bomb had been found near the Italian town of Sterzing in November. Residents near the site will be evacuated during the operation.

The conflict between 1939 and 1945 continues to cast a shadow on Europe after more than 70 years as unexploded bombs dropped by airplanes from rival powers are discovered. In Germany, more than 2,000 tonnes of live bombs and munitions are found every year.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Italy closes route over Brenner mountain pass to defuse WW2 bomb
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2016/0220/Italy-closes-route-over-Brenner-mountain-pass-to-defuse-WW2-bomb
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe