Thousands of Singaporeans were forced to evacuate their homes today as pyrotechnicians would defuse a WWII bomb, during which the former British colony had been bombed by the Japanese Air Force.

The explosive device weighing 100 kg was found last week during construction work in northeastern Singapore, police said.

Pyrotechnicians neutralized the bomb at the point where it was located as its transfer to another place to proceed with this process was considered too dangerous. Authorities cordoned off the area by setting up a security perimeter and more than 4,000 residents of the densely populated island-state were temporarily forced from their homes.

Singapore was bombed by Japanese aircraft on December 8, 1941, when it was a British colony, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor aimed at destroying the American fleet in the Pacific.

The bombing intensified from January 1942, and in early February Japanese forces invaded Singapore after a week of fighting against British soldiers.