Hundreds evacuated over Waterford bomb threat

A number of buildings had to be evacuated in Waterford’s city centre yesterday after an anonymous phonecall was made claiming that two bombs were set to explode.

The call was made to gardaí at about 12.10pm and the emergency services were immediately dispatched to The Mall area, with hundreds of people told to leave buildings in the area.

The caller said bombs had been placed in the Theatre Royal and the adjacent Waterford City and County Council offices and were due to go off at 1pm and 1.20pm.

Those premises were among several to be evacuated, including the popular House of Waterford Crystal across the road, while the street itself was sealed off by gardaí between the junctions with Colbeck St and Lombard St.

Gardaí carried out an examination of the area after hundreds of people were ordered onto nearby streets, but nothing suspicious was found in any of the relevant buildings.

Searches were carried out of the Theatre Royal and the council offices and traffic diversions were put in place in this busy section of the city while the alert was being dealt with.

The Mall area was re-opened before 3pm with gardaí satisfied the bomb call was a hoax. An investigation has been launched to try and establish who made the call.

Mayor of Waterford Adam Wyse, who was in the council office at the time, said the gardaí brought the situation under control without delay. “I was at the door when the alarm started to go off and around eight or nine squad cars pulled up. There was no sense of panic or no-one running around screaming or anything like that,” he said.