Around 100 people were evacuated from their homes in a mountain town in Telemark Wednesday night, after police found a bomb in a neighbouring house. Police had arrived at the house in Siljan to arrest one of the two people living there on unspecified criminal charges.
The bomb appeared to be homemade and consisted of around a kilo of TNT with a fuse intact. The neighbourhood was quickly evacuated, shortly after 10pm, and a bomb squad called in to disable it.
After several tense hours, and a search for more explosives, police called off the alarm early Thursday morning and the evacuees were allowed to return to their homes in the residential area around two kilometers outside Siljan’s central business district.
“It was unreal,” one resident, May Kristin Staulen, told state broadcaster NRK. “There was no time to think (when the police came knocking on the door), there was only time to grab my purse and leave.” Neighbours were sent to a local school and arrangements were being made to place them in hotels when word came around 1:30am that they could return home.
Police wouldn’t say what led them to their armed raid on the house, revealing only that they were acting on behalf of another police district that was pressing criminal charges against one member of the couple living there.
After finding the bomb, both the man and the woman were arrested. Both defendants are in their 30s and police said they had police records. They claimed the couple was not tied to any specific criminal groups nor were they suspected to any links to a terrorist organization.
newsinenglish.no staff
