All clear after amok alarm in Siegburg – ICE trains diverted between Cologne and Frankfurt

An amok alarm at a secondary school in Siegburg near Bonn kept the police and several special units in suspense for hours on Wednesday. In the afternoon, to the relief of emergency services, students and teachers, it was clear that nothing bad had happened or was to be expected at the Alexander-von-Humboldt-Realschule.

Shortly before 3 p.m., the police in Siegburg tweeted under the hashtags “Aktueller

Earlier in the morning there had been some indications of a greater danger. According to a police spokesman, a witness had observed a hooded person on the school premises who is said to have handled a gun and shot in the air. Other witnesses heard cracking noises.

A large number of police were immediately deployed, and special forces (SEK) were called in. The area was cordoned off over a large area, and a helicopter circled the area for hours.

Almost two kilometers from the secondary school at a Siegburg vocational college, a suspicious object was discovered under a vehicle, the police said on Twitter. The item turned out to be a backpack. A "defuser" from the State Criminal Police Office was supposed to examine the bag, which is said to have belonged to one of two suspects. The assignment at the vocational college was not over by 4:30 p.m. in the afternoon.

For the time of this investigation in the parking lot of the vocational college everything was cleared within a radius of 400 meters, including residential and business premises, the police tweeted. The nearby Siegburg train station and a section of the railway were also closed.

Train services have been temporarily suspended. There were delays and cancellations in regional traffic. Long-distance traffic on the high-speed route between Frankfurt and Cologne was also affected. According to Deutsche Bahn, trains had to be diverted over a wide area and could not stop in Siegburg/Bonn, Montabaur and Limburg-Süd. There were delays.

At first, the students and teachers of the Realschule locked themselves in the classrooms – as is usual with such alarm messages. Later, they were all escorted out of the school by police officers. Officers searched the entire building with no results. No suspicious persons or objects were found.

Officers found the remains of firecrackers and firecrackers outside the school. At first there was also talk of ammunition, which later turned out to be a false report.

Meanwhile, a manhunt for suspects was under way. “Several people were found who matched the description of the perpetrator. They were checked by us," said the police spokesman for the German Press Agency. "But one cannot speak of an arrest." Later it was said that "two young men" had been checked and questioned. However, the results of the surveys are still pending.