German police are searching for a man who abandoned a bag of explosives at a Berlin train station and ran away after being stopped by federal officers, according to police.
"We are investigating all possibilities," a police spokesperson told Reuters on Thursday, adding that authorities had not yet been able to identify the suspect.
Police said they stopped the man in the German capital's Neukoelln station on Wednesday afternoon. He fled the scene and explosives were found in the bag he left behind, according to a post on social media platform X.
The explosive found was triacetone triperoxide (TATP), often referred to as "the mother of Satan" due to its prominent use in attacks, such as the Bataclan club bombing in Paris, in the shoe soles of Richard Reid and the planning of the Taylor Swift concert attacks in Vienna.
The amount of explosive material and the charges found inside prompted police to alter protocol: rather than transporting the device to a designated disposal station, authorities evacuated passengers from the train station and transported the device to an open area. Firefighters then dug a pit for a controlled detonation of the material. The blast's echoes were heard hundreds of meters away.
"If the device had exploded in a crowded area, the consequences would’ve been dramatic," a police officer told the BZ newspaper. "The device was wired, indicating it was meant for use, not transit alone. This is an explosive that anyone could make in their kitchen from materials anyone can buy. Using such an explosive carries an extremely high risk. The explosive can detonate from any movement or change in weather. A major disaster was averted."
Police could neither confirm nor deny the report on the type of explosive.
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