A bomb scare caused the Victoria & Albert Museum and surrounding area around Exhibition Road in London to be evacuated yesterday. The museum was closed for one hour, but reopened that same day, at 4 pm, after no suspicious item was found.
“Specialist officers are searching the premises, which as you can imagine is going to take some time,” a V&A spokesperson told the Mirror online during the incident. “It has been evacuated as a precaution.”
The museum was cordoned off for an hour. Photo Michael Willoughby-Lalague/ Instagram
Police confirmed to the media that police officers searched the much-loved museum thoroughly, before giving staff and visitors the all clear to reopen.
Cities around the world are on high alert, following terrorist attacks on a Christmas Market in Berlin on December 19 and in an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Eve.
Museum staff declined to comment on the incident, referring requests from journalists to the police.
Visitors to the museum took to social media to express their surprise and warn others, although not everyone was aware of the scale of the incident.
Some visitors were rushed away from the entrance to the museum before three vans of police appeared and the surrounding area was closed off, including parts of Brompton Road, Cromwell Road, and Exhibition Road.
Some onlookers were charmed by a group of ballerinas who, after being evacuated from a rehearsal in the museum, continued to practice on the pavement outside the museum. Others made light of the situation, joking about their interrupted visits to the area.
There are some reports that the Science Museum, opposite the V&A, was also evacuated, but a spokesperson from the museum told artnet News that it remained open throughout the incident nearby.