Over 50,000 people were evacuated from an Italian city so experts could defuse a bomb dating back to Second World War, authorities have said.

Residents in Brindisi on the country’s southern coast were forced to vacate a “red zone” near where the wartime device was found.

The operation – which vacated 60 per cent of the Puglia city’s population – was the biggest peacetime evacuation in Italy, according to the daily newspaper Il Corriere della Sera.

Around 54,000 people were evacuated in total during Sunday morning, authorities said.

Those moved included prison inmates, who were transferred to another facility in a neighbouring city, according to local news reports.

Operation Biting: Radar in the Second World War Show all 7 1 /7 Operation Biting: Radar in the Second World War Operation Biting: Radar in the Second World War Part of a Wurzburg radar antenna's intermediate frequency amplifier Jon Sharman/The Independent Operation Biting: Radar in the Second World War A valve from a Wurzburg radar, left, compared to one from a British device Jon Sharman/The Independent Operation Biting: Radar in the Second World War Part of a Wurzburg radar antenna's intermediate frequency amplifier Jon Sharman/The Independent Operation Biting: Radar in the Second World War An instruction booklet for the Freya radar, captured after the war Jon Sharman/The Independent Operation Biting: Radar in the Second World War An instruction booklet for the Freya radar, captured after the war Jon Sharman/The Independent Operation Biting: Radar in the Second World War A book of German air force terminology compiled by Britain's air ministry Jon Sharman/The Independent Operation Biting: Radar in the Second World War 'SAS: Shadow Raiders' by Damien Lewis, which details how the Operation Biting raid was conceived and executed Jon Sharman/The Independent

Authorities said the bomb would first be deactivated and then transported to a nearby quarry, where it will be made to explode, according to local news.

The British bomb, believed to have been dropped on the city in 1941, contains 40kg of dynamite, authorities said.

It was found by chance last month during refurbishment works at a cinema.

Residents were told they could return to their houses at 1pm local time.

Other Italian cities have been evacuated in recent months after bombs were discovered during construction work.

Thousands of citizens were evacuated from Turin in north Italy as bomb disposal experts defused a Second World War device, which was also British, in early December.

In October, another bomb was defused in the city centre of Bolzano after being found on a construction site.