Numerous Queensland schools have been placed on lockdown today following another spate of recorded bomb threats.
The Department of Education and Training this morning confirmed 18 schools across Queensland received the calls the were cause for concern, reports the Courier Mail.
“A number of Queensland state schools today received calls of a threatening nature,” a DETE spokesperson said.
“All of these schools immediately contacted police and have enacted emergency procedures based on police advice.”
The list of schools are believed to be:
Far north Queensland
Caravonica State School
C&K Innisfail Community Kindergarten and Preschool
Trinity Bay State High School
North Queensland
Bowen State High School
Kirwan State High School
Central Queensland
Emerald State High School
Mackay State High School
North Coast
Sunbury State School
Darling Downs South West
Goondiwindi State School
Roma State College (Middle School campus)
Brisbane Metropolitan
Albany Creek State School
Bremer State High School
Bulimba State School
Payne Road State School
South East
Beenleigh State High School
Coombabah State School
Palm Beach State School
Surfers Paradise State School
These follow similar recent incidents which have seen schools in Australia and overseas evacuated because of recorded bomb threats being called in.
At least two schools in NSW and three in the ACT also received phone calls on Thursday morning.
Who is doing this?
A week ago a Russian pro-Putin hacker group claimed it was responsible for a series of hoax bomb threats to schools around the world.
The group which calls itself Evacuation Squad said that it carried out the threats in Australia because they were “funny” and warned Europe would also be targeted.
“Yes, we are responsible for Monday’s threats,” Viktor Olyavich of Evacuation Squad told Mashable Australia. “We do these threats because they are funny to us.
“We are preparing to do schools across Europe as we speak. We don’t worry about the consequences, because our main threat-makers are based in Russia and Iran.
“We are doing so many at once due to a stolen VOIP account that has a trove of calling credit.”
How seriously should we take these threats?
Following a spate of threats NSW Police said there was “clearly a pattern of hoax calls designed to cause disruption and attract media attention”.
“There is no evidence these are anything other than hoaxes designed to cause unnecessary disruption and inconvenience,” the statement said. “The threats appear to come from overseas with no credible evidence they could be carried out here.”
We will keep you updated if there are any developments.
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