The German foreign ministry building was evacuated Wednesday after a bomb threat, a ministry spokesman told AFP, hours after a Frankfurt skyscraper had to be cleared for the same reason.
Ministry employees calmly left the building at about 2:40 pm (1240 GMT) and the surrounding area was blocked off to traffic and pedestrians, the spokesman said.
He declined to comment on the nature of the threat.
Police in the western city of Frankfurt had announced earlier that one of the most prominent skyscrapers in Germany's financial capital, the Messeturm, had been evacuated briefly following a bomb threat.
Alerted over an intercom system, hundreds of office workers descended the stairs of the 256-meter-tall (839-foot) building and gathered on the sidewalk until the all-clear was given about 15 minutes later.
Police said the threat had been made by telephone.
Some 2,000 people normally work in the foreign ministry but it was unclear how many were present at the time of the evacuation.
In reference to the terrorist strikes in the United States, German Interior Minister Otto Schily said that there were always people who tried to exacerbate a troubling situation with hollow threats and said he hoped the one against the foreign ministry was baseless -- BERLIN (AFP)
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