<p><br /> Thousands of people, many disabled or ailing, have been evacuated on Sunday from the shrine at Lourdes in southern France after a bomb threat on the Catholic holy day of Assumption.<br /> </p><p><br /> The pilgrims returned after explosives experts scoured the area.<br /> </p><p><br /> Some 30,000 pilgrims were at the site, whose spring water is reputed to have healing powers, when Lourdes police received a threat late in the morning saying a bomb would hit the site on Sunday afternoon.<br /> </p><p><br /> In an announcement read in six languages, authorities ordered everyone evacuated just as a midday Mass was supposed to begin.<br /> </p><p><br /> About 900 gravely ill pilgrims, including many on stretchers, were taken to a secure place while explosives experts with sniffer dogs fanned out around the shrine, Lourdes Mayor Jean-Pierre Artiganave said on France-Info radio.<br /> </p><p><br /> While the site was off-limits to pilgrims, a scheduled prayer service was held anyway, in the shadow of the spring and a statue of the Virgin Mary. After about five hours, the shrine reopened and Assumption ceremonies resumed, said another shrine spokesman, David Torchala.<br /> </p><p><br /> No information was available about the source of the threat.<br /> </p>
