22 July 2004	Thursday	04 Jamadi-us-Saani 1425

PARIS, July 21: French authorities rushed thousands of tourists out of the Eiffel Tower on Wednesday after receiving a warning that a plane was about to crash into the famous Paris landmark, police and the tower's management said.

Around 4,000 people were evacuated from the 324-metre structure, which was closed for two hours before police ascertained that the threat was a hoax and it was reopened. The company managing the tower, SNTE, said in a statement it had received "an anonymous message" which triggered the alert.

It refused to elaborate on the threat, but a police source said a caller had spoken of a plane about to hit the Eiffel Tower in an attack reminiscent of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York's World Trade Centre.

A careful verification showed the threat was a hoax, but only after authorities emptied the nearly full tower as a precautionary measure - a procedure that took 40 minutes to complete.

The last time the structure was evacuated was nearly exactly a year ago, on July 22, 2003, when a small fire broke out at the top, in a zone reserved for broadcast transmission equipment. French officials are particularly sensitive to threats to the Eiffel Tower and other symbolic landmarks. -AFP