A suspected bomb threat in Upper Franconia turned out to be a translation error and led to a train evacuation. A 36-year-old asked a woman on Monday where the train would be divided so as not to go in the wrong direction, a federal police spokesman said.
Due to a language barrier, the man translated his question using his cell phone. However, the question was translated so that there was talk of an exploding train. According to the spokesman, the woman then ran to the toilet and alerted the police from there. The officials evacuated the train with 80 passengers in Oberkotzau in the Hof district – and cleared the train station there and a youth center. An explosives detection dog was also on duty.
It was finally revealed that the 36-year-old was completely misunderstood and that there was no bomb threat at all, it was said. In total, the evacuation affected 18 trains and therefore caused delays of around 1,000 minutes in total.