Dresden city authorities confirmed that approximately 10,000 affected people had been evacuated from a one-kilometre radius zone in the centre of the city between 7 to 9 am on Thursday morning.
DPA reported warning sirens heard early in the morning as evacuations were announced.
On Wednesday, an English aerial bomb from the Second World War was found during demolition work on Dresden's Carola Bridge.
The authorities then initiated plans to clear the area and diffuse the bomb for public safety.
A large part of Dresden's old town is affected by the large-scale closure.
The number of affected evacuees is high because the bomb was found in the middle of the densely populated city centre.
The evacuation radius includes several hotels, the Frauenkirche as well as the Ministry of Finance and the State Chancellery.
Emergency shelters for affected residents were made available at Messe Dresden from 7 am, according to a press release from the Saxony police.
Additional city buses (DVB) were in service to bring evacuees to the shelter from pick-up points at Sachsenplatz, Pillnitzer Straße/Rietschelstraße, Grunaer Straße/Pirnaischer Platz and Albertstraße/Ritterstraße.
Current information will continue to be updated on the on the Dresden Fire Department and the Saxony Police websites and social media channels.
Why was the bomb only discovered now?
The bomb is reportedly a 250 kilogram British bomb from the Second World War.
It was discovered during demolition work on the Carola Bridge, which is under construction following its collapse in September.
Undetonated WWII explosives are discovered fairly regularly in Germany - even so many decades after the end of the war. Back in 2022, for example, two half-tonne bombs were found in different districts of Berlin within a matter of weeks.
When this happens, nearby residents are generally asked to leave their homes while the bombs are defused and removed from the area - though sometimes injuries or even deaths occur.
READ ALSO: EXPLAINED - How many WWII bombs are still being found in Germany?
According to a report by t-online, the Dresden bomb was assessed to be in a relatively stable condition so the defusal could be scheduled for later on Thursday morning rather than immediately after its discovery.
Is it dangerous?
Despite being 75 years old or more, undetonated bombs from WWII can still be dangerous, which is why police always evacuate potential blast zones as a precaution before bomb squads begin to defuse them.
In the past decade, at least a couple of explosions from old bombs injured and killed people in Germany: in 2021 an old British bomb exploded on a construction site in Munich which injured four people, and in 2014 an explosion in Euskirchen in North-Rhine Westphalia killed a construction worker and wounded two others.
Around 2,000 tonnes of explosives leftover from the Second World War are still found each year in Germany, sometimes buried metres underground.
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