City hit by demo and bomb alert
A SECURITY alert at Belfast's Victoria Square and a public hire taxi protest have caused traffic chaos.
A suspicious object was found in department store House of Frazer shortly before 2pm on Thursday.
Evacuation
Army technical officers were tasked and the store was cleared.
Shoppers in the rest of the Victoria Street complex were also later evacuated.
Explosion
A controlled explosion was carried out on a bag and the incident was later declared a false alarm at around 5pm.
Meanwhile there was congestion around the City Hall area as taxi drivers staged their second go-slow protest in a week.
Taxis
Last Thursday, as many as 300 taxis from all parts of the city converged on the City Hall with the intention of bringing traffic to a standstill.
The drivers are protesting because they say there are not enough taxi ranks in the city to cope with the increasing number of public hire vehicles on the roads.
Last week, a spokesman for the taxi drivers warned that more protests would take place – on a bigger scale – if they felt their demands were being ignored.
Yesterday's go-slow resulted in motorists being caught up in tailbacks until the protest ended at 3.30pm.
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Weather for Belfast
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 4 C to 8 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 4 C to 7 C
Wind Speed: 6 mph
Wind direction: South west
