Hundreds of Tameside College students and teachers evacuated after Twitter 'gun' threat

'RIP to the kids,' one tweet said

Students and staff at Tameside College were evacuated after the college received a threat on social media (Google Street View )

Hundreds of pupils and staff were evacuated from a Greater Manchester college after it received a "gun" threat on social media.

After putting the site on lockdown, Tameside College, in Ashton-under-Lyne said it had removed everyone from all its sites as a precaution.

Around 2,000 pupils were believed to be present, having returned from their Easter holidays.

It followed a series of tweets from an unknown user which said their gun was "loaded" after the college posted a message welcoming students back.

One said: "Hello there i will be st the collage [sic] today with a gun loaded! At 11am".

Another said: 'Rip to the kids".

The user's Twitter account later appeared to have been removed.

As a result, the college said in a statement, the college said that it had "evacuated students and staff from all its sites.

It added: “This precaution was taken in collaboration with Greater Manchester Police... All students and staff are safe. All evening classes have been cancelled.Tameside College will be open as normal tomorrow morning.”

Greater Manchester Police told the Independent it had responded to reports that the college had received “a threat”.

Enquiries were ongoing, a spokeswoman said.

Police said they received reports of another threat made to Bury College, about 15 miles away from Tameside, but that had not been evacuated.

A spokesman from Greater Manchester Police told the Independent: “Neither of the threats were deemed credible”.