Bomb threat evacuates about 1,400 students at Mechelen school

A bomb threat forced the evacuation of the Ursulinen school complex in Mechelen, Belgium, on Friday afternoon, after an anonymous caller used what may have been an electronic voice repeating the phrase "bomb threat," Dutch-language broadcaster HLN reported. About 1,400 students were evacuated; roughly 300 primary pupils were away at a sports day and so were not affected, Kitos school group communications director Ingeborg De Cooman said, meaning not all 1,700 pupils enrolled across the complex were involved.

The call came in at around 12:30pm, and because it did not specify which building was targeted, staff triggered the fire alarm to clear the secondary school along with the neighbouring primary and nursery schools, HLN reported. Pupils were moved to the nearby Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-over-de-Dijlekerk church, and parents were notified through the Smartschool platform, De Cooman said. Older pupils were allowed to go straight home, while parents of younger children were asked to collect them in person, HLN reported.

Police sealed off Sint-Jacobstraat and posted officers at every entrance to the site, Rivierenland police spokesperson Dirk Van de Sande said. Officers carried out an initial sweep of more than 200 classrooms, followed by a second search using three explosive-detection dogs from the federal police; neither search found anything suspicious, and the buildings were released at about 3:30pm, Van de Sande said.

The threat was phoned in, and police said an electronic voice may have been used, the Brussels Times reported. An investigation to identify the caller is under way. A secondary school in Niel evacuated about 300 students on Thursday after a similar threat; a search there found nothing suspicious, and it is not clear whether the two incidents are linked, the Brussels Times reported.

Ursulinen had been due to hold a barbecue and an alumni café event on Friday evening, but both were cancelled because of the uncertainty over when the school buildings would reopen, HLN reported. Some pupils said they initially thought the fire alarm was a routine drill, of the kind held every September, and only learned of the bomb threat once they were outside, HLN reported.