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Eiffel Tower evacuated after bomb alert

Police evacuated some 2,000 people from the Eiffel Tower and the park surrounding the Paris landmark on Tuesday following a bomb alert, the police said.

“The company managing the Eiffel Tower received an anonymous telephone call around 8:20 pm (1820 GMT),” a Paris police official told AFP.

“Special units, one with sniffer dogs, went to the site to search the Eiffel Tower floor by floor,” the official said.

“Around 2,000 people were evacuated.”

The 324-metre (1,063-feet) high tower has three floors open to visitors and is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world.

The tower, which also has two restaurants, normally closes at 11:00 pm.

A police officer earlier said about 25,000 people were in the area at the time of the alert. The evacuation began shortly before 9:00 pm.

The people evacuated, mostly French and foreign tourists, were asked to stay on the nearby Seine river banks and the Champ de Mars park to the east, and the tower area was cordoned off, an AFP reporter on the scene said.

Around a dozen police vehicles could be seen inside the cordoned-off area.

The Eiffel Tower was built in just two years by engineer Gustave Eiffel as the centerpiece of the 1889 world fair in Paris, on the centenary of the French revolution.