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Dynamite blast at Malmö research centre

Police in Malmö have said they were aware of a known threat to a hospital in the city where a bomb exploded in the early hours of Monday morning.

Dynamite blast at Malmö research centre

The threat was unrelated to animal testing carried out at the Clinical Research Centre (CRC), the front of which was blown off in a dynamite explosion at 2am.

“The animal rights activist lead has gone cold. There is instead another threat that we consider a lot more interesting,” said police investigator Willy Persson.

The investigator refused to elaborate further on the nature of the threat, which was communicated to the police via telephone shortly after the bomb exploded. Persson said the blast was caused by a single stick of dynamite that was powerful enough to destroy a large number of window panes and leave clear marks in the stone paving where it had been placed.

“This type of criminality is hard to get at, but apparently there is a surveillance film. If we’re lucky there’ll be something on the film,” said Persson.

Police had previously been considering the possibility of a link to animal rights activists.

“Of course that’s one of our theories but it’s too early at this stage to focus on just one theory,” Martin Carlsson at Skåne police told Svenska Dagbladet on Monday morning.

The bomb attack has been classified as negligent endangerment and the building has been sealed off for forensic examination.

The police currently have no suspects in the case and no witnesses have come forward.

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WWII bomb found in Frankfurt safely detonated after mass evacuation

A massive World War II bomb found in Germany's financial capital Frankfurt was safely detonated in the early hours of Thursday, the city's fire service said, allowing tens of thousands of evacuated residents to return to their homes.

WWII bomb found in Frankfurt safely detonated after mass evacuation
Experts stand on mountains of sand, which were put in place to soften the force of the explosion of the WWII bomb in Frankfurt's Nordend. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Frank Rumpenhorst

The 500-kilogram unexploded bomb was unearthed during construction work on Wednesday in the densely populated Nordend area of the city, a location firefighters said made it a “particular challenge” to remove.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper reported the ordnance had been discovered right next to a children’s playground at a depth of about two metres (6.5 feet).

READ ALSO: What you need to know about WWII bomb disposals in Germany

Its report said the controlled blast, which happened just after midnight, “sounded like thunder rumbling” and left a hole three metres deep and ten metres wide.

Firefighters said that they had covered the bomb with 40 truckloads of sand before detonating it, in order to minimise damage to the surrounding buildings.

Around 25,000 people had been asked to evacuate the area, including the occupants of a nearby community hospital’s neonatal ward.

Among residents who took shelter at a skating rink was 29-year-old Tobias, carrying his pet cat in a cage.

He said he had heard the news over a police loudspeaker and been ordered to leave his home immediately, causing a “bit of stress”.

Barbara, 77, told AFP the news was “a bit of a shock, we don’t expect that”.

However, building works in Germany regularly unearth unexploded World War II ordnance, 76 years after the conflict’s end.

Seven bombs were defused in 2020 on land near Berlin where Tesla plans to build its first factory in Europe for electric cars.  

READ ALSO: WWII bomb in Frankfurt triggers 30m high water fountain

Other bombs were also discovered last year in Frankfurt, Cologne, and Dortmund.

In Frankfurt, the discovery of a 1.4-tonne bomb in 2017 led to the removal of 65,000 people, the biggest such evacuation in Europe since 1945.

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