Haarlem square evacuated over hand grenade

The discovery of an explosive, presumably a hand grenade, triggered the evacuation of the Botermarkt in Haarlem on Monday. The square was closed off for several hours while the Ministry of Defense's explosive clearance service removed the explosive to detonate it elsewhere, the police said on Twitter.

The police responded to the scene at around 8:30 a.m. The square was released again at around 11:00 a.m., according to newspaper AD.

During the early hours of Sunday morning a parked car on Professor Donderslaan in Haarlem was damaged in an explosion. It is not yet clear whether these two incidents were related, a police spokesperson said to AD. "For now there is not a clear link."