Nowadays you hear so much about bombs (bomby) and terrorist attacks (ataki terrorystyczne)…Thousands of people had to be evacuated from one of Warsaw’s biggest shopping center this week after an anonymous caller claimed there was a bomb in the building.

Police sealed off the Złote Tarasy center just before noon on Wednesday, and sent in bomb disposal teams (zespoły saperów) with trained sniffer dogs (wyszkolone psy tropiące) to scour the shopping mall, which stands adjacent to Warsaw Central Station, office blocks and one of the city’s main bus terminals.

The bomb threat (zagrożenie bombą) also brought chaos to city center traffic as thousands of people spilled onto the streets, and roads around the glass domed shopping center were closed to all traffic except emergency vehicles (pojazdy ratunkowe).

The decision to evacuate the building was taken in the interests of staff and customers and was made after consultation with the police. Thousands of people managed to flee from the center in just a few minutes.

The escalators (schody ruchome) were switched off so people had to make their way down on foot but the public address system told people about this. Security was polite and pointed people in the right direction. Some wanted to go to their cars in the underground parking but were told that was impossible.

Video footage taken at the time showed hundreds of people calmly making their way out of the centre with the evacuation warning still sounding.

With the center evacuated, police were free to conduct a search but found no trace of a bomb.

Just who called in the bomb threat is still a matter of a police investigation.

Do następnego razu… (Till next time…)