A Swedish police warehouse building in Linköping was destroyed after the bomb squad detonated a motorbike filled with explosives.
The moped containing what has been described as some form of plastic explosive covered with nails was discovered on Monday afternoon by officers in a stolen property room, and led to the evacuation of around 170 personnel from the area, Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Radio reports.
Following the evacuation, the Swedish bomb squad was called in to make a controlled detonation of the explosives but, according to Sveriges Radio, something went wrong with the operation and a much larger blast than expected took place.
Police spokesman Erik Terneborn admitted that the detonation, “did not go quite as one had hoped” but said the officers had taken such a scenario into account when they evacuated the area.
The building was totally demolished and windows in nearby properties largely destroyed, but no injuries to officers or civilians have been reported.
Police held a press conference Tuesday explaining that the moped had been reported stolen in May of this year and that no explosives were discovered in it at the time it was found.
The explosives were not found until the owner of the moped came to collect it this week. Police say the owner is not suspected of having planted the explosives in the moped.
Daniel Axelsson, head of the department of serious crimes at the Linköping police aid that investigators were examining any possible connection to a large explosion at an apartment building in the city earlier this year that injured 25 people.
“When we find explosives in Linköping after there has been an explosion in the past, it is obvious that we are eager to see if there is a connection,” he said.
Sweden has seen a wave of explosions this year with many taking place in the multicultural city of Malmö, including three separate detonations in a mere 24-hour period in June.
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