Explosive knickers

TOKYO: Two bags with a note warning they would blow up if opened triggered a bomb alert at a Japanese university – before explosives experts found they contained women's underwear and a chocolate cake.

Police evacuated Kyushu University's pharmacology department in southern Japan early on Tuesday and called in the bomb squad after a staff member found a white paper bag with a note that said "To Yoko, if you open this it will explode" and a pink plastic bag marked "This one too".

The paper bag contained the cake and the plastic bag the underwear, a spokesman for Fukuoka prefectural police said.

Two female students of the department had meant the parcels as a birthday present for a friend, writing the note because they thought it would stop anyone from touching the bags. They left them in the post room on Monday night, e-mailing their friend to tell her to collect them.

The friend, however, forgot.

The police spokesman said the two were being questioned about the incident but it was too early to saay if they would be charged.