Just heard on the radio that pubs and bars in Birmingham city centre are being evacuated

[lemonice]

due to police intelligence..

confirmed that the package on the bus was an explosive.

unconfirmed about the one in the hotel

unconfirmed on outside a pub

series of controlled explosions taken place

oh GDG - are you not able to cancel?

BBC site says bus wasn't an explosive though:

"Officers now believe that the item destroyed on the vehicle, in Corporation Street, had not posed a threat."

Jampots - I'm tempted but I'll see nearer the time. It's end of July.

HH - in Brum there was an explosive on a bus?

HH - where is your sister now?

a few years ago there was another controlled explosion involving a bmw parked illegally outside the main cop shop on steelhouse lane - i think the man got back to the car just a little too late

hotel chevanne (might have heard that name wrong)

everyone grouped in court yard, all mobiles off and told to stay away from windows at the hotel

armed anti terror police now on broad street

lost contact with sis

Message withdrawn

please keep us informed as to what is going on in brum. I don't have sky tv and am worried about relatives. sorry for everyone else who is concerned or living in the area.

are you hearing these reports off the radio HH?
I've still got skynews on and it hasn't mentioned anything else.
I know they like to with hold information to prevent panic.

This is hideous...d'you know what, I think it's only just hit me how big this is iykwim. I've been quite calm about it so far. Now I'm worried about going into town on a hen do and I'm worried about my Dad and bro now - both police in Manchester centre.

I bet my Dad comes back from his holiday to a complete nightmare at work on Monday.

Also don't forget that some of the news being given out right now is likely to be inaccurate and subject to change. There will be lots of rumours and uncertainities with info coming from lots of places, not all reliable.

well they seem to have been evacuating for several hours now so i assume your sis is out of town now HH. Am wondering whether Heart have been getting reports by phone from bystanders -

but why would you hang around. If I was in Brum tonight regardless of how much I'd paid for a hotel - I would be out of there like a shot!

Local radio, from reporter on broad street

update - retracted comment about the package on the bus being an explosive thank god.

with the ones in London, they carried on saying on the news it was due to a power surge. It seemed unlikely at the time and has of course been confirmed since that it was explosives.

Phew, glad about that.

sis will be fine - she's a sensible head on her shoulders, was out celebrating her birthday.

what do you mean kid?

Radio 5 seems very quick with news ..whether that is good or bad is a different matter...

On Thursday morning after the blasts on the underground, the news were saying it was a powersurge.

oh i see!

any morenews coming in

I don't think this evening's evacuations in Birmingham would have been undertaken lightly, the economic impact is huge and will have repercussions so I'm sure these were more than the normal response to a forgetful person leaving something behind...it's odd however that they say they are not connecting this evacuation to events in London...

Allan Sartori, a Birmingham club owner, said police appeared to have the situation under control in the city centre.

He said evacuating the city centre would have cost "a lot of people a lot of money".

But he added: "People's lives are far more important than money in a situation like this."

(from sky news website)