Eiffel Tower evacuated after hoax call

PARIS:

The Eiffel Tower was completely evacuated on Sunday afternoon following a threatening phone call, a police official told Reuters.

The 324-metre-high (1,062-foot) iron tower was evacuated around 3 pm (1300 GMT) and had not reopened to tourists by 5:30 pm. The sector around it was fully cleared, the police official said. He could give no further details.

Built in 1889 and one of the world’s most recognisable monuments, the Eiffel Tower sees some 7 million visitors each year and up to 30,000 a day in the peak summer season.

An iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris, the Eiffel Tower, is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.

The tower is the tallest structure in Paris and the most-visited paid monument in the world. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to assume the title of the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years.

It is regularly subject to bomb scares which are usually quickly found to be hoaxes and only cause full evacuations a couple of times a year.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2013.