LPG canisters hooked up to two timers found in men’s toilet but police say device was not a bomb and could not have caused an explosion
NG KANG-CHUNG
KC.NG@SCMP.COM
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 17 January, 2016, 5:59pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 17 January, 2016, 5:59pm
Police bomb disposal robots were sent to investigate at BP International on Austin Road. Photo: Felix Wong
About 1,600 guests were evacuated from a hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui on Sunday after a bomb scare.
Police said a call was made to the police’s emergency hotline at around 11.15am saying a bomb had been seen at BP International, a four-star hotel in the centre of the busy tourist district, just a stone’s throw away from Tsim Sha Tsui Police Station.
The 29-storey hotel has 529 rooms and is popular with mainland tourists.
Police sealed off the building. A search found five 10-inch-long liquefied petroleum gas canisters, usually used for hotpot meals or portable stoves, tied together and hooked up to two timers in a men’s toilet on the first floor of the hotel.
Bomb disposal robots were deployed while police evacuated some 1,600 people on the first three floors of the hotel and asked guests on upper floors to stay in their rooms.
However, the police’s Tsim Sha Tsui assistant divisional commander Felix Chan Yun-kam later said the device was not a bomb and could not have caused an explosion.
No one was arrested. The Kowloon West regional crime unit was following up on the case.
The scare was the second bomb hoax in the past week. On Thursday, the Legislative Council Secretariat received a bomb threat after which officers scoured through the Legco building but did not find any explosives.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1901984/bomb-scare-bp-international-hotel-hong-kongs-tourist-mecca
