The level of fear in Romania has increased after the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, although the country hasn’t raised the level of terrorist alert, which is now at a cautious level. Recent bomb alerts in Romanian smaller cities have shown that Romanians are more aware of a terrorist attack risk.

A bomb alert was triggered on Monday, November 23, in the small city of Lugoj, in southwestern Romania, as an object resembling a grenade was spotted in a banking unit.

The bank’s security guard sounded the alarm, around closing time, after seeing what looked like a grenade on one of the desks. In less than 10 minutes, more than 20 policemen, firefighters, gendarmes, security officers, and special operations troops went to the banking unit. They evacuated the building and secured a 300 sqm perimeter, according to Digi 24 news station.

When inspecting the bank, the policemen found that the “grenade” was actually a rubber air duster that a technician had used to fill the printer’s ink cartridge. It seems that the man who worked on the printer that day forgot his pump there. He was fined RON 500 (EUR 112) by the police for causing panic in the city and may even have to pay for the whole security intervention, according to a local prosecutor.

The incident came only days after a similar alert was triggered in Piatra Neamt, in northern Romania, on Thursday. In that case, a bag left on a natural gas protection box next to a gas station in the center of the city triggered the alarm. The intervention crews went there and secured the site, blocking the traffic on a 500-meter radius only to find that the bag had been left there by a homeless person who went farther away searching through the trash bins.

editor@romania-insider.com