On monday, 14.40 hrs, a conductor on the local train that had been going back and forth between Aachen and Hamm in western Germany since 04.40 hrs, found a piece of luggage and no owner in sight. At Dortmund central station, along the way in the Ruhr area, he dropped the luggage off at the lost and found center.
People there opened the luggage to check for an owner and found a professional bomb with timer, wires and bottles of gas and butane. The police closed the station and started to evacuate the people.
Today, tuesday, at Koblenz in the Rhine valley, a second bomb was found. It had been deposited in the station on monday. It was off the same construction as the one in Dortmund. Terrorism is heavily suspected but blackmail is still possible. There was a similar case in Dresden in 2003.
Now, what would you do if you were a conductor on a passenger train?
Would you go to the nearest station with a lost and found center? Or would you stop the train and start evacuating everybody on board?
I would think, that he would probably need a fresh uniform to change into upon receipt of the information about the bomb in the bag. The reality of today’s world is that there is always a potential to find a bomb in a dropped bag in a public place. It would be best to err on the side of caution than to have to be a victim of a bomb, or to try and explain away an individual’s inaction in regards to a suspicious bag in a public place. We are in WWIII, and the fighting is live in the Middle East, with indiscrimanent acts of violence capable of popping out anywhere, globally; ie., New York, Madrid, London, for starters. It is time we took this kind of thing seriously.
First, they broke the first rule of unattended luggage. You don’t touch it. You assume it’s a bomb. Evacuate everyone and let the police terrorism and/or bomb guys take care of it. Being this occurred in Europe, I’m surprised it didn’t happen this way.
If it happened on the train, stop the train away from the station and other populated areas and evacuate everyone. Once again, you let the police handle it…literally.
Sadly, we are taking this too seriously. We are so paranoid that we are scared of our own shadows! We must relax and [censored] with everyone that might[censored] with us! We should be in there w
TOO SERIOUSLY? Does “Madrid” mean anything to you?
Yes, I would prefer not to have to take some precautions that have become commonplace, but to ignore the reality of the world situation is insane. [soapbox]
Today, the German police said, the two bombs did not explode because the persons who manufactured them had committed some error. (error not specified). However, if the bombs had exploded, the cars could have burnt and derailed. Contrary to Madrid, they were not intended to explode during a station-stop. The police believes the terrorists wanted to call attention to the situation in the Near East. However, it cannot be connected to the war of Israel against Lebanon, because the bombs were placed before the war broke out.
The persons who placed the bombs left the train after getting rid of their intended to be deadly cargo. No suicide bombers. In the bags, the police found some notes pointing to Lebanese food-shops. The police said they have no hot information on the identity of the terrorists.
Sadly enough, total safety in mass-transit-systems is impossible.