German kindergarten forced to evacuate after student brings in WWII bomb

A kindergarten in Darmstadt, Germany was evacuated after a youngster brought an unearthed World War Two to class.

"A child had found the stick-type incendiary bomb during a walk in the woods and brought it along to the kindergarten," Darmstadt police spokeswoman Andrea Loeb told Reuters.

She added to The Local: "After the 'strange object' was spotted on a shelf, the teachers immediately notified police and took the children to a playground off site."

A bomb disposal team was called to the scene to safely remove the bomb from the classroom. The children were then allowed to return to the kindergarten.

Explosives experts later swept the forest where the bomb was found for further bombs before the all-clear was given.

More than seven decades after the war ended in 1945, unexploded World War II aerial bombs are regularly found buried in Germany. Authorities issued a warning that such explosives were often found in woods, fields and private gardens and that suspicious objects should be immediately reported to police.

According to Reuters, more than 2,000 tonnes of live bombs and munitions are found every year in Germany. In December 2016, an unexploded British bomb forced the evacuation of 54,000 people from their homes in the southern city of Augsburg.

Just five months later, another 50,000 people were ordered to evacuate in the northern city of Hanover to allow a bomb disposal team to defuse the bomb.