Officers are carrying out a major operation in the German city of Chemnitz “because of the suspicion of a planned bomb attack,” Saxony police said on Saturday.
No suspect has yet been detained, police said. An explosion heard at the scene “was a protective measure taken by the police,” the police force said via Twitter, as it warned people in the area to stay indoors.
Saxony Police spokeswoman Kathlen Zink told CNN a controlled explosion had been carried out by police.
She could not give any information as to where the suspected attack with explosives was meant to take place.
The police urged people via Twitter not to post photographs or video to social media as the operation, focused on an apartment block in the Fritz-Heckert district, was ongoing.
Earlier, the police tweeted that large areas of the city were cordoned off.
Once known as Karl-Marx-Stadt
Chemnitz, a city of more than 200,000 people, is in Germany’s east, lying to the south of Berlin and Leipzig, not far from the border with the Czech Republic.
From 1953 to 1990, as part of the former East Germany, the city was known as Karl-Marx-Stadt. It still features a 7-meter high bust of the philosopher Karl Marx.