A fashion show for Black Fashion Week at the Wings Hotel in Rotterdam was cut short on Saturday evening. The hotel, located at Rotterdam The Hague Airport, had to be evacuated due to a bomb threat. The Koninklijke Marechausee searched the hotel with sniffer dogs, but no explosives were found, NU.nl reports.
The Koninklijke Marechaussee, a policing force that works as part of the Dutch military, reported on Twitter that the hotel was being searched at around 8:00 p.m. Some 75 minutes later, the Marechaussee reported that there were no explosives at the hotel.
Guests to the fashion show had to spend some time outside in the cold, before they were given shelter at the Ibis hotel. Despite this, multiple guests complemented the organizers of Black Fashion Week Rotterdam for how smoothly the evacuation was done. "Hats off to the presenter", one guest said to RTV Rijnmond. "The evacuation was announced in a orderly and calm way. We were asked to walk across the street."
"The show started with the second designer when the presenter asked if we'd calmly go to the exits", another visitor said to the broadcaster. At first they thought it was a fire alarm. "After an hour and a half it was said: there was a bomb threat."
"That was a bit of a shock", a third fashion show attendee said to RTV Rijnmond. "You come for a show and at one point halfway through you hear: everyone has to leave because there was a bomb threat. But I wasn't afraid." The attendees calmly walked to the Ibis hotel. "It was cold because we were not allowed to get our coats. Everything had to be left there", she said. "But when we arrived, we had a nice chat with each other. We spent a good two and a half hours there."
The Marechaussee is investigating who made the bomb threat.
