Thousands of Catholics evacuated in Lourdes bomb scare

A bomb scare on Sunday forced the evacuation of the Roman Catholic sanctuaries in the French pilgrimage destination of Lourdes as 30,000 worshippers celebrated the Feast of the Assumption.

Reuters

"A bomb warning was received at the police station, announcing that four bombs were going to go off at around 3.00pm in the sanctuaries," the site's press officer, Pierre Adias, told AFP just before 2.00pm local time (12:00 universal time).

"We're trying to evacuate the shrines and to prevent those people who left to have lunch from coming back in. This is proceeding calmly," he said.

On 15 August, Catholics celebrate the Virgin Mary's ascent to heaven.

Lourdes is a southern French town where the faithful believe the Virgin Mary appeared in a vision 152 years ago, and is a popular site to mark the event.