Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

A warn­ing writ­ten on the mir­ror of a wash­room led to the tem­po­rary evac­u­a­tion of the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter on St Clair Av­enue on Tues­day, po­lice said.

Sources con­firmed that a work­er at the build­ing went to the fe­male wash­room on the sec­ond floor at around 9.34 am when she saw the words ‘Evac­u­ate bomb on the sec­ond floor’ writ­ten on one of the mir­rors.

The act­ing deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary was in­formed who in turn or­gan­ised an evac­u­a­tion of the com­plex through the health and safe­ty of­fi­cer.

Work­ers were evac­u­at­ed to the near­by Nel­son Man­dela Park as fire of­fi­cers and of­fi­cers of the po­lice ca­nine unit searched the build­ing and deemed it safe for re-en­try by 12.40 pm.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the scene po­lice of­fi­cers set up cau­tion tape on Gray Street and Alexan­dra Street, cor­don­ing off en­try to the build­ing from any di­rec­tion.

While the build­ing was de­clared safe by of­fi­cials by mid­day, most em­ploy­ees were able to re­turn to work by 1 pm as heavy rains prompt­ed work­ers to take shel­ter at near­by build­ings.

In a me­dia re­lease on Tues­day af­ter­noon, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Dar­rel Al­la­har con­firmed the in­ci­dent, not­ing that it not on­ly in­ter­rupt­ed op­er­a­tions at the build­ing, but al­so af­fect­ed oth­er build­ings and traf­fic in the area.

Al­la­har said in­ves­ti­ga­tions are un­der­way in­to the threat as he con­demned the act, lament­ing that it de­layed the func­tion of the of­fice.

“Their ir­re­spon­si­ble ac­tions have in­con­ve­nienced many and kept back the work of the na­tion, he said.

“I wish to warn those re­spon­si­ble for to­day’s un­for­tu­nate in­ci­dent that such ac­tions shall nev­er be tol­er­at­ed and they will be found and dealt with by the ap­pro­pri­ate au­thor­i­ties.”

Al­la­har com­mend­ed the work of staff, the po­lice and fire of­fi­cers in fa­cil­i­tat­ing the build­ing’s evac­u­a­tion.