Second school slaying foiled

A second school massacre due to be carried out on Adolf Hitler's birthday has been foiled by police in Germany. Officers found bomb-making equipment and knives in the bedroom of a 17-year-old boy.

It is alleged he intended to carry out his plot on 20 April – the anniversary of Hilter's birth in 1889, and of the Columbine High School killings in the US in 1999.

Parents with children at Reichenbach school in Ennepetal, in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, said the boy told other children he was planning a massacre. Teachers discovered he had used school computers to find bomb-making instructions. Police raided his family's flat in Schwelm village, near Cologne, and found glycerine, hydrochloric acid and black powder.

The boy, who is being held at a psychiatric hospital, told police the threats were a joke. On Wednesday, Tim Kretschmer, 17, killed 15 people and himself during a shooting spree at his former school near Stuttgart. Police are braced for a series of copycat threats and sealed off a school in Ilsfeld, 35 miles from the scene of Kretschmer's killings, after a threat to carry out a similar massacre there was posted on the internet.

And a 21-year-old man was arrested in Soltau, Lower Saxony, after making similar claims, police said.

The wave of threats follows claims that Kretschmer also gave warning of his intentions in an internet chatroom. Police now believe the posting they were shown was a fake.