Ship traffic on the Elbe River has been interrupted by a 1,000-pound US bomb discovered near Blohm+Voss shipyard.
The newly found bomb is in the vicinity of several terminals and storage facilities, including a hazardous goods warehouse, according to German news reports.
Evacuations were in progress as of 2 pm local time while a bomb squad disarmed the 75-year-old device.
There are no homes in the industrialised area that need to be evacuated.
The bomb was discovered Tuesday morning in the Hermann Blohm Strasse, near the historic shipyard, the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper reported.
The yard is located on the southern bank of the northern Elbe channel, opposite the St Pauli area of central Hamburg.
Hamburg police took to Twitter to warn the public in the affected area not to go outside, to leave doors and windows shut, and to stay on the side of the house furthest away from the newly discovered bomb.
Vessel tracking websites indicate that merchant vessels nearest the site include ACL's 1,307-ceu ro-ro Atlantic Sail (built 2016), which is in dry dock; and Gefo's 6,300-dwt chemical tanker Traviata (built 2014), which was at the quayside at the time of the announcement.
Neither is in the "red zone" of highest danger, according to police.
