A Venice port area was evacuated on Sunday morning as a World War II-era bomb was defused and set to be exploded in the sea. 

The operation in the port of Marghera, a mostly industrial area separated from the tourist city by water, required the evacuation of about 3,500 residents beginning in the early morning.  

[twitter id="script>" link="⚠ #Bombaday #Diretta ⚠

➡ L’ordigno sta per essere spostato in acqua

✅ Grazie all’intervento di @ItalianNavy verrà ora trasportato attraverso il Canale dei Petroli in mare aperto dove sarà fatto brillare pic.twitter.com/iasvJ4uqqO

— Comune di Venezia (@comunevenezia) February 2, 2020

Boat, train and bus traffic was all halted during the operation and planes were prohibited from flying to and from Marco Polo Airport from 8:30am until 12:30 pm. 

The bomb, which weighed about 225 kilos and contained about 129 kilos of TNT, was discovered during an excavation to fix sewer lines in January.

At mid-morning, authorities said the first two phases of the operation - the evacuation of residents, and the process to strip the fuses from the bombs, had been successfully completed. 

#Venezia #Bombaday - L'ordigno è stato privato delle spolette e caricato sul mezzo della @ItalianNavy che procederà alla seconda parte dell'operazione. Il video di Andrea Rossini #TgrVeneto #ioseguotgr pic.twitter.com/TSdztkN5mX

— Tgr Rai Veneto (@TgrVeneto) February 2, 2020

Gianluca Dello Monacco, commander of the Army regiment that carried out the work, told Rai24 that the precautions were justified. 

"It still carried a high risk of explosion," Dello Monacco said.

Next was the transfer of the bomb on a ship to a remote area in the sea, where it was to be detonated.