A huge 500-kg wartime bomb will force a mass evacuation around Berlin's central railway station on Friday, local police said.
All buildings and streets within a radius of 800 meters around the station must be cleared on Friday morning by 9 a.m.
"As we know, it is a 500-kilogram bomb of British origin," Martin Halweg, a spokesman for the Berlin police, said, cited by German newspaper Tagesspiegel. "From nine o'clock on Friday we will check every house around the site to make sure that no one is there."
The evacuation area includes the central railway station as well as several embassies and ministries located nearby.
Although police officers were unable to give any concrete information about how long the operation may last and how many people will be affected, they said that Berlin is likely to face a "major hassle."
READ MORE: British WWII Bomb Prompts Tens of Thousands to Evacuate in Germany's West
Earlier in April, another British WWII bomb prompted the mass evacuation of tens of thousands of residents in the city of Paderborn in Germany's west.
Some 5,500 unexploded bombs are neutralized in Germany annually and there are still tens of thousands left.
According to estimates, the US and British air forces dropped over one million tons of bombs on Germany in their struggle against the Nazi regime.
