Washington DC: bomb threat at train station

  • 28/07/2016
People evacuated from Union Station in Washington DC (Sharif Shaalan / Twitter)
People evacuated from Union Station in Washington DC (Sharif Shaalan / Twitter)

Police have declared an all-clear at Washington DC's Union Station and allowed people to re-enter the train terminal after a bomb threat forced a brief evacuation.

"We didn't find nothing. We wouldn't let you back in if it wasn't all clear," said a police officer, who did not give his name.

An Amtrak employee described the incident on Wednesday (local time) as a "false alarm" and said there would be a slight delay for trains.

The entire incident lasted less than an hour.

Scores of panicked people ran out of the US capital's main railway station while police investigated a possible suspicious package after an earlier report of a bomb threat, police said.

A witness said people began running out of the station, a hub for railway, commuter train and subway service in the city, shortly after 5pm local time.

During the alert, at least 20 police cars, a fire truck, an ambulance and vehicles from the US Department of Homeland Security's Federal Protective Service converged on the station.

Reuters