Thousands of people were evacuated from a northern suburb of Paris while a World War Two bomb was rendered safe on Sunday, BBC reported. 

Residents in Colombes living within a 450m radius of where the device was found last month were told by police to leave their homes by 07:00 local time (05:00 GMT), as authorities carried out a bomb disposal operation. 

An inital attempt to remove the device's detonator failed, French media reports, prompting authorities to destroy the historic munition in situ with a controlled explosion.