strange_complex | Entries tagged with terrorism

Apparently the threat in Brum last night was "real and credible", but everything's back to normal now. Some people had a pretty tedious night, because there are quite a few who live within the evacuated area, and had to spend the night in places like Aston University instead. But they've been allowed home now, and all traffic is moving as normal.

Hmmm: so apparently there is a bit of a Thing going on in Birmingham city centre at the moment. Police received 'intelligence', evacuated a few areas, found a suspect package on a bus, evacuated more areas, carried out a controlled explosion, and now everyone has been sent out of the city centre and no vehicles are allowed to move around within the inner ring road.

It's probably a lot of panic about nothing, and sitting here in Selly Park, we only knew about it because one of my cousins phoned to check my aunt (who is staying here this evening) was OK. Presumably all will be back to normal by tomorrow morning, but if not, it could be pretty tedious for guests trying to get to our party.

It's certainly already wrecked a lot of nights out - according to the editor of the Sunday Mercury, who was interviewed about it on BBC News 24, there were 30,000 people evacuated, which is quite normal for B'ham city centre on a Saturday night. One lots of wedding guests apparently congaed out of the evacuation zone, but the bride and groom themselves were, understandably, in tears.

Anyway, let's hope it is all just a storm in a tea-cup, and that it won't have any impact on tomorrow.

For those, like me, trying to follow what's going on from an office with no TV or radio:

london_070705

Gosh, I really hope all you London-based people are OK!

I also really hope this is just some technical fault or human error-based thing, and not something anyone has done deliberately.

UPDATE: Just heard from sister - she and her partner are safe.