Three unexploded U.S. bombs from World War II were defused on Wednesday in Cologne after the German city's biggest evacuation since the end of the war.

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.

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.