dpa<\/p>\n
Amsterdam <\/p>\n
Police in Amsterdam are investigating whether criminals caused an explosion at an apartment building that injured seven people and forced 400 residents to <\/p>\n
evacuate.<\/p>\n
Three people have been detained, police said on Saturday. After an extensive rescue operation, officials now believe there are no more victims trapped beneath the rubble.<\/p>\n
The powerful blast occurred in an annex attached to the apartment building in the early hours of Friday. <\/p>\n
The explosion triggered a major fire and caused part of the structure to collapse, the police statement said.<\/p>\n
A group of young men had allegedly been manufacturing explosive devices in the building\u2019s basement, the newspapers Het Parool and De Telegraaf cited the fire brigade and witnesses as saying.<\/p>\n
The devices were similar to those used in cash machine bombings, the reports said, adding that the suspects are believed to have been preparing for a robbery in Germany.<\/p>\n
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema condemned the production of explosives in the middle of a residential neighbourhood, calling it <\/p>\n
\u201canti-social.\u201d <\/p>\n
Since residents apparently knew about the activities, questions are now being raised about whether police were also aware of them, Halsema told broadcaster NOS.<\/p>\n
For years, a group from the Netherlands has been held responsible for blowing up cash machines in Germany. Separately, explosive attacks regularly occur in criminal circles targeting flats and company buildings.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are trying to track down those who make and plant the explosive devices,\u201d Halsema said. She called preparations for explosive attacks in residential areas a \u201cgigantic\u201d problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"dpa Amsterdam Police in Amsterdam are investigating whether criminals caused an explosion at an apartment building that injured…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[16378,16379,23,10921,770,1515,16381,16380,16382],"class_list":["post-21982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-amsterdam","tag-16378","tag-after","tag-amsterdam","tag-custody","tag-explosion","tag-in","tag-injures","tag-major","tag-seven"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}