--FILE--View of shopping carts at the Carrefour supermarket in Longde Square, Changping district, Beijing, China, 10 March 2014. A shopping mall on the outskirts of Beijing was sealed off for almost seven hours on Thursday (13 March 2014) after a department store received a bomb threat on the last day of the National Peoples Congress. The Carrefour branch in Longde Square, Changping district, received an e-mail before 9am saying explosives had been placed inside the store and would be detonated if a 50, 000 yuan (HK$63, 000) ransom was not paid, Changping police said. Employees and customers in the 330, 000-square-metre shopping complex were evacuated after police arrived after 9am, workers said. Police sealed off the side of the mall where Carrefours entrance is located. Businesses on other sides were asked to also close and the entrance to the mall was locked. Police took down their cordon at about 4pm, allowing business to resume in the mall. Many customers who had been waiting to enter the department store flocked inside. An official from the Changping district government propaganda department and a policeman told reporters that no evidence of explosives had been found during the search.
