An explosion and the discovery of a second suspicious object have sparked the closure of a German city’s train station just hours after the nation’s government blamed Russia for a failed drone attack on one of its major airports.
Police completely closed the train station in the southern German city of Augsburg on Wednesday morning after one object exploded and another suspicious object was found nearby. Trains were no longer running.
The first unidentified object exploded in a building passageway, officials said. Several people sustained minor injuries due to the loud sound of the explosion. Some windows were also damaged.
Explosives experts from the Bavarian state criminal police office were investigating at the scene.
Road traffic and public transportation in the vicinity of the station were also disrupted, police said on X.
Further information on the blast and the second suspicious object, which did not explode, was not immediately available.
Augsburg is a city of 308,000 residents in Bavaria, about 78km northwest of Munich.
The incident follows a statement from Germany’s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt which directly linked Moscow to a drone carrying an explosive device which found at Leipzig/Halle Airport in eastern Germany on August 4.
The drone, which was found close to Ukrainian cargo planes, did not explode due to a faulty detonator while it’s understood a second drone collided with a nearby cargo aircraft.
Mr Dobrindt said the August airport attack followed the “well-established pattern of Russian hybrid operations in Europe” and the assumption was that Germany would be targeted again.
The airport is known as a major cargo and distribution point for arms and supplies being flown into Ukraine for the nation’s five-year battle against Russian forces.
Leipzig is 417km northeast of Augsburg.
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