A bomb scare at Victoria University this afternoon is the second threat of violence at a NZ university in two days and has some officials on edge. Vice chancellor of the Victoria University, Professor Grant Guilford, says officials throughout NZ are now on alert.
He says, “As the New Zealand Vice Chancellor Committee, as soon as that happened at Otago, we all went on heightened alert on our campuses across New Zealand.”
A letter found by an elevator in the Murphy building contained threats of a bomb which had police evacuating the building. According to one uni student, “One of us got a message that there was a bomb threat in the class next door but we just carried on with the class.”
Guilford explains, “We were very informed by the Otago Vice-Chancellor that the threat there was specific to Otago and so it was a precautionary step to prepare ourselves in the likelihood of something happening.”
Some of the universities students Te Kāea spoke to, thought it was highly unlikely that events seen in America last week could be repeated here.
“It feels like NZ isn't really a place where that stuff goes down, yeah I tend to agree,” said one of the campuses students.
Investigations in to identifying the person who made the threat will continue.
