Hoax bomb alert: Basel EuroAirport evacuated for fifth time this year
Hundreds of passengers gathered outside the airport on Wednesday evening due to the hoax bomb threat.
Keystone / Georgios Kefalas
The passenger terminal at EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg was temporarily evacuated for safety reasons on Wednesday evening.
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Keystone-SDA
The terminal was shut at around 7:15pm, an airport spokeswoman told the Keystone-SDA news agency. She did not give any further details of the reasons behind the closure.
Hundreds of passengers gathered outside, as seen in photos published by the media, having been informed of a bomb threat.
The terminal was reopened at around 10pm and the airport announced that flight operations would gradually resume. Passengers had to accept delays, however, and several aircraft reportedly took off late in the evening.
This was the fifth time the airport has been evacuated since the beginning of the year. According to French authorities (the airport is located on French soil, but serves a region stretching into Switzerland and Germany), the incidents in March and January were both caused by hoax bomb threats. Nothing has yet been revealed about the investigations or those behind the threats.
In October 2023, there were four false threats made against the EuroAirport within seven days. In France, where the airport is located, there were hundreds of such threats last year.
These are said to be linked to the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, as well as the murder of a teacher in France.
Adapted from German by DeepL/kp,dos
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