Explosion at Dutch Covid testing centre

Blast was an intentional attack, police say

The bomb shattered windows but caused no injuries (ANP/AFP via Getty Images)

An explosion occurred at a coronavirus testing centre in the Netherlands before sunrise on Wednesday, shattering windows but causing no injuries in what police called an intentional attack.

An explosives team examined the device in the town of Bovenkarspel, 35 miles north of Amsterdam, police in the province of North Holland said.

Police spokesperson Menno Hartenberg told Reuters that the metal remains of the explosive, which were about 10 cm by 10 cm in size, were found in front of the building and "must have been placed" there.

"Something like that doesn’t just happen by accident, it has to be laid," he said.

The police were alerted to a “loud blast” that broke several windows by a security guard in the testing centre, a police statement said.

Nobody was injured in the explosion, which occurred just before 7 am.

Mr Hartenberg also toldEuronews that authorities “are not ruling out any leads and cannot yet say anything about the motives, an investigation is underway”.

The region around Bovenkarspel, a rural town, is currently suffering one of the Netherlands’ worst Covid-19 outbreaks, with 181 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, compared with about 27 per 100,000 nationally. At least one hospital has been forced to send patients to other provinces due to lack of space in its intensive care units.

In January, another coronavirus testing centre in the nearby village of Urk was burned down by rioters.

The riots were in response to the introduction of a night-time curfew.

At the time, local officials and police issued a statement denouncing the protest as “not only unacceptable, but also a slap in the face, especially for the local health authority staff who do all they can at the test centre to help people from Urk”.

Wednesday is the first day in several months when lockdown measures in the Netherlands have been slightly eased, with hairdressers reopening and non-essential stores accepting a small number of customers by appointment.

Additional reporting by Reuters