The German city of Cologne has finished evacuating 20,500 people, its largest evacuation order since World War II, after officials defused three massive, unexploded bombs.

Thousands of people were evacuated from central Cologne in western Germany on Wednesday following the discovery of three wartime bombs, in what the city authority called the largest such operation since the end of World War Two.

More than 20,000 people in Germany were evacuated as authorities worked Wednesday to defuse three huge unexploded bombs from World War II at a construction site in the center of the city. A major incident was declared due to the danger from the bombs -- two 2,