폭발물 신고로 대피 소동이 일어난 미국 하버드대가 '위협이 없다'며 다시 교정을 개방했다.
하버드대는 16일 오후 3시26분(현지시각) "교정에 특정 위협이 없는 것으로 파악돼 학교 업무가 정상화됐다"고 성명을 통해 밝혔다.
앞서 하버드대는 이날 오전 8시40분께 교내 4개 건물에 폭발물이 설치됐다는 미확인 이메일 신고가 접수돼 소개령을 내리고 학생과 교직원을 대피시켰다.
연방수사국(FBI)과 현지 경찰은 해당 건물에서 수 시간 수색을 벌였으나 폭발물이 발견되지는 않았다고 대학은 전했다.
애초 신고에서 거론된 빌딩은 과학센터 등 수업동 3곳과 신입생 기숙사 1곳이다. 하버드대는 경찰이 해당 신고의 접수 경위 등을 확인하고 있다고 밝혔다.
이날 하버드대는 기말고사 기간이었다. 소개령이 발동하면서 학생과 교직원은 섭씨 영하 7도의 추운 날씨에 시험을 중단하고 캠퍼스 밖으로 급히 대피했다.
수색이 벌어지는 동안 대학은 교정을 폐쇄해 외부인 출입을 막았다.
한 하버드대 재학생은 AP통신과의 인터뷰에서 "누군가가 시험을 안 치려고 장난 전화를 한 것 같다. 기말고사가 이번 사건으로 연기돼 안타깝다"고 전했다.
하버드대 교정이 있는 매사추세츠주 케임브리지는 올해 4월 마라톤 대회 테러가 일어난 보스턴 시내에서 차로 10여 분 거리다. 보스턴 주변 지역의 건물들은 4월 테러 이후 폭발물 위협에 대해 경계를 대폭 강화한 상태다. (연합뉴스)
<관련영문기사>
All-clear given at 4 evacuated Harvard buildings
Four buildings on Harvard University's campus near Boston were evacuated for hours Monday, interrupting final exams, after police received a report that explosives may have been placed inside. The buildings were reopened after hours of searches.
The FBI was investigating the report along with Cambridge and university police and other agencies, and the school said the buildings were evacuated out of an abundance of caution.
``Harvard's focus is on the safety of our students, faculty and staff,'' the university said in a statement. It would not immediately say after reopening all the buildings whether any explosives were found.
Three of the evacuated buildings _ one a dorm, and two classroom buildings _ border Harvard Yard, and the other was the science center at the Ivy League school in Cambridge.
The mood on campus was calm as students streamed out of Harvard Yard on a frigid morning with temperatures in the 20s. The gates around the yard were closed and people were allowed to leave but not enter unless they had school IDs.
Juniors Alexander Ryjik of Alexandria, Virginia, and Diego Abrahao of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, said their professor was handing out exam booklets for their Politics of American Education class shortly after 9 a.m. when the alert went out that they had to leave Emerson Hall.
``I have a good guess somebody called it in so they wouldn't have to take an exam,'' Ryjik said. ``It's frustrating because now the exam will have to be postponed.''
A classroom building was also briefly evacuated Monday at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, which has 16,000 undergraduates and graduate students who are also taking final exams this week. University police got a call from someone who said they had seen a person with a gun in the building, which was closed while university, Boston and state police searched it. They determined there was no one with a gun and the call is being investigated, said school spokesman DeWayne Lehman.
Last month, another Ivy League school, Yale University in Connecticut, was locked down for nearly six hours while authorities investigated a phone call saying an armed man was heading to shoot it up, a warning they later said was likely a hoax.
And in February, someone called in a hoax about a gunman on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, another elite school about two miles from Harvard. The university said the gunman was a staff member looking for revenge after the suicide of an Internet activist accused of illegally using MIT computers. (AP)
