The Albufeira Shopping mall was evacuated by the GNR this afternoon. Shoppers were cleared from the zone after an alert had been issued by the centre manager just after 1pm.
The GNR Command in Faro stated, "We received news of a bomb threat and proceeded to evacuate the mall."
The GNR’s explosives unit inspected the area and declared that, thankfully, it had been a false alarm. A package was found but this was innocuous.
Despite the bomb scare being just that, the well-run response operation was welcome evidence that the security services are just minutes away in response to alerts to potentially serious incidents.
The shopping centre was reopened just after 3pm.
