Hotel bombed by extortionist.

Press, 29 August 1980, Page 6

Hotel bombed by extortionist.

NZPA Stateline, Nevada A large bomb exploded yesterday during attempts to disarm it and blew a two to three-storey hole in the side of a Lake Tahoe casinohotel, just hours after an unsuccessful attempt to pay extortionists SUS 3 million ($3.06 million), the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation has said.

The New York Times News Service said authorities had evacuated thousands of people from casinos and hotels in the community on the California-Nevada border, and no injuries were: reported. The bomb, which the authorities said appeared to contain about 454 kg of TNT, exploded with a thunderous blast at 3.43 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time on Wednesday. (12.43 p.m. yesterday N.Z. time), . sending thick grey smoke : streaming through the casino district and causing heavy damage to Harvey’s resort hotel-ca-sino.

Shards of glass,> concrete, and the casino’s neon sign, part of the glittering display of lights that turns “Casino Row” ablaze at night, were thrown as far as four blocks

across the State border into California. “The whole front went out,” a security guard at the nearby Sahara-Tahoe Hotel said of the damage to the 11-storey Harvey’s, which has 250 rooms. The second and third floors appeared gutted by the explosion, with windows blown out and balconies collapsed, but upper floors appeared relatively undamaged.

The blast ended a tense stalemate that had lasted since early the day before when, two- people posing as computer technicians wheeled a large box into the casino and left a typewritten note with their demands for money and a helicopter. The bomb was described by one source as in a box on wheels and was covered With blankets-lettered IBM.

An X-ray examination had showed that the bomb contained an elaborate system of switches and meters to discourage attempts to defuse it.

The Douglas County sheriff, John Maple, said that bomb squad members were trying to render it safe by remote-control, using, a robot, when the explosion occurred.