Baggage belonging to Londoners “suspect”
A LARGE police operation was launched in Faro recently after Faro Polícia de Segurança Pública (PSP) received a telephone call warning of a bomb placed on a bus, which had just arrived in the Algarvean capital from Tavira.
Police immediately evacuated the area around Faro’s EVA bus terminal and sent in a bomb disposal squad. Passengers on the bus in question had to wait for over an hour while explosives experts examined the bus and searched through passengers’ luggage.
Two young, non Portuguese speaking British tourists, who had been travelling on the bus, did not understand what was happening and left their luggage, apparently unattended, while they went to a nearby café to wait until the situation calmed down. But when, while having a drink outside the café, they saw bomb disposal officers gingerly examining their baggage, they realised in horror what was going on.
One of the dismayed Britons, both from London, said that he could not believe his bad luck, having come away from London, currently on a high state of alert, and gripped by fear due to the recent terrorist attacks, only to find the same thing happening in the Algarve, just a few days into his holiday.
After a thorough search of the bus and luggage, bomb disposal officers declared the situation safe and that the operation had clearly been caused by a false alarm.
