Dynamite find wreaks havoc in Limassol

POLICE had to evacuate the offices of the island’s biggest shipping agency in Limassol yesterday after an explosive device was found outside the building.

The home-made bomb turned out to be a dud.

At around midday, police received a call from a distraught worker at the offices of Columbia Shipping Ltd, telling them a “thing wrapped in tape, maybe a bomb” had been found.

Police rushed to the offices in downtown Limassol to find a bundle of dynamite sticks bound together with sticky tape left by the perimeter fence of the gardens of the offices.

Workers were ordered to evacuate the premises while a wide area around the offices was cordoned off and police explosives chief Antonis Shiakalis was sent for from Nicosia.

News of the bomb find caused panic among residents and shoppers in the area.

When Shiakalis arrived on the scene less than an hour later he found the device had no detonator attached to it.

Police are investigating.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.