Starting with the bomb, over 50,000 residents from the southern German city of Augsburg have been evacuated from their homes. This is to allow an operation to defuse a World War Two bomb can occur on Christmas Day. Although there probably remains, according to historians, undiscovered bombs, the Augsburg issue is the country’s biggest evacuation for an unexploded bomb ever. The bomb is a 1.8-tonne British explosive, dropped in 1944.
The only bright note is that the majority of Germans celebrate Christmas and open their presents on Christmas Eve, rather than on Christmas Day.
Having no running water does not lead to an abundance of Christmas cheer. This is what befell a number of properties in the U.K. In the south-west and west London area a problem occurred with a major water pump located in Hampton. The pump was operated by the private utility company Thames Water.
The water company have apologized to residents and are working to rectify the problem. This hasn’t prevented angry customers taking to Twitter to vent their anger with the water loss, which has resulted in many Christmas dinners being delayed. For example, Daniel Emery (@ThraxUK) messaged: “Collecting water for neighbours in #twickenham so they can flush the toilet. Hope @thameswater reduce my bill 🙂 #watergate.”
Finding a more amusing way to cope with the incident, local rock band Beggars Harvest (@Beggars_Harvest) tweeted: “No water here in Hampton and Twickenham! Meaning the only substitute for water is CHAMPAGNE! ”
The final piece of less-than-festive-news is where over 100 skiers were trapped in cable cars above the mountains in Italy. The reason was that high winds caused one of the ski lifts to fail, leaving many people stuck 30 meters in the air. The skiers, after eight hours of being trapped, have been rescued.
