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A pomegranate-shaped belt buckle in a passenger's suitcase caused serious disruption on Wednesday in the rail services in the two main Spanish cities, causing evacuations from stations before the police declared the incident a false alarm.
A Spanish national police official said that the alert had ended after agents in Madrid had confirmed that the suspect object in the suitcase of a passenger who had traveled in a train at large speed from Barcelona was safe.
The official was not allowed to be named in the media reports.
"Everything is returning to normal," the national police said in a brief tweet explaining that the disruption in long-distance and suburban train stations in the Spanish capital was due to the false alarm.
Research in the capital has followed the police in search of high-speed trains and railroads in the country's second largest city, Barcelona, after the security scanner at Sants Central Station has identified an object in the shape of Any explosive device in a suitcase.
The police of Catalonia tweeted an image of the scanned suitcase, claiming that the object had been revealed to be a belt buckle.
When asked why the suspicious case had been allowed in the train, the company that manages the Spanish railway infrastructure and oversees the safety of the railway stations said that she had opened a internal investigation. The company, ADIF, also said in a statement by e-mail that it was reviewing its security protocols.
An AP reporter present at the scene in Barcelona saw long lines of passengers waiting for the resumption of rail traffic.
A local extremist cell killed 16 people last August in Barcelona and in a coastal resort town in the course of subsequent car and knife attacks later claimed by the Islamic State group.
—
Brito reported from Barcelona, Spain.
