Germany-Netherlands soccer game in Hannover canceled after police find ambulance filled with explosives
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Updated: Tuesday, November 17, 2015, 3:17 PM
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MICHAEL SOHN/APPolice officers outside the HDI-Arena stadium.
It could have happened again.
Police found an ambulance filled with explosives outside a canceled soccer match in Hannover, Germany, immediately invoking fears of another terror attack like last week's massacre in Paris, according to local reports.
Authorities also cleared the TUI-Arena, with a performance planned by German band Söhne Mannheims, but did not say if there was a serious threat there.
The Germany-Netherlands friendly game hadn't even started when authorities sealed off the HDI-Arena due to a "suspicious object," police said.
Police deemed it a false alarm and eventually let cheering fans into the stadium, which was crawling with machine gun-toting cops.
GOOGLEPolice evacuated the HDI-Arena in Hannover, as well as a concert hall in the city.
But police then ushered everyone outside, and later called off the game.
"There were serious plans to bring something to explode," police chief Volker Kluwe told reporters.
CHRISTIAN CHARISIUS/EPA
MARKUS SCHREIBER/AP
Police swarm the Hanover stadium after a serious bomb threat.
The German newspaper Kreiszeitung reported officials found an ambulance stuffed with explosives outside the stadium.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was scheduled to watch the game, and said she wanted to prove Germany was not afraid of terror attacks. She was not at the stadium, officials said.
Reporters on the scene said police were holding a man at gunpoint about half a mile from the arena, though it was not immediately clear why.
MARKUS SCHREIBER/APOfficers sealed off, evacuated and finally canceled the game.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was not at the match.
The axed game came on another day of high fears throughout Europe in the wake of the Paris massacre, which included a suicide bomb attack outside a Germany-France soccer game, with French President Francois Hollande attending. He was not injured. Terrorists also bombed and opened fire at a sold-out Eagles of Death Metal concert.
Hanover is about 775 miles northeast of Paris.
Hollande made a cooly-received call Tuesday for the EU to join France in its battle against ISIS. As armed guards surveilled the streets of the French capital, police briefly shut down the Eiffel Tower over a bomb threat that turned out to be a false alarm.
ISIS posted a new video mocking the Paris attacks and taunting other countries to wage war with them.
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