The German authorities temporarily closed the Oktoberfest grounds in Munich on Wednesday because of a bomb threat that they said was linked to an explosion in a residential area of the city.
The Munich police said in a statement that firefighters and medical workers were initially called to a burning building at 4:40 a.m. on Wednesday in the north of the city after neighbors reported hearing explosions. Those emergency responders found several fire-damaged vehicles in front of the house and “explosive traps” inside the building, along with a “nonspecific” bomb threat, the police added.
The authorities said that they believe the episode was linked to a domestic dispute. The bomb threat was written by a 57-year old German man, according to the police. They said the man had shot his mother and daughter, then set his parents’ house on fire before driving to a nearby lake where he shot himself. The police did not name the man, saying only that he had died but that both women had survived.
The threat prompted a search of the Theresienwiese, the site where Oktoberfest takes place. That delayed the opening of the festival by several hours, as 500 officers and bomb-sniffing dogs scoured the grounds.
After several hours of searching, the city of Munich announced that nothing suspicious had been found and that the festival would reopen at 5:30 p.m.
Tens of thousands of people are in Munich for the 190th iteration of Oktoberfest, which drew about 6.7 million visitors last year. The festival in Munich was shuttered in 2020 and in 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In 1980, 13 people were killed in a terrorist attack at a festival exit.
Christopher F. Schuetze is a reporter for The Times based in Berlin, covering politics, society and culture in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The post Bomb Threat Delays Oktoberfest in Munich appeared first on New York Times.
