Festival goers leave the venue of the Rock am Ring music festival on June 2, 2017 in Nuerburg following an evcuation alert (AFP Photo/Thomas Frey) 
 
 Berlin (AFP) - Germany's biggest rock festival will resume after being disrupted by fears of a possible "terrorist threat" which have proved to be unfounded, the organisers said Saturday. 
 
 Police told AFP searches at the three-day "Rock am Ring," held near the southwestern city of Koblenz were over. Live music will resume at 1:30 pm (1130 GMT). 
 
 Some 90,000 people are expected to attend the event which ends on Sunday. 
 
 "After a series of intensive searches across the site the fears of an imminent danger were not confirmed," the organisers said. 
 
 "The police gave the go-ahead" for the festival to restart, they said. 
 
 The festival was evacuated on Friday evening after Koblenz police said they were in possession of "concrete elements, in the light of which a possible terrorist threat cannot be ruled out". 
 
 Police said three people suspected of being members of a Salafist group in the neighbouring state of Hesse were detained but released on Saturday. 
 
 "One person who is not of German origin and is known to the police as having links to the Islamist terror network had access to" backstage areas, police spokesman Wolfgang Fromm said. 
 
 The three had been hired to set up security barriers at the venue. 
 
 Security for the festival had already been stepped up, with an additional 1,200 staff, in response to the May 22 Manchester bombing which occurred after a concert by US singer Ariana Grande. 
 
 The region's interior minister Roger Lewentz defended the decision to evacuate the festival, saying: "We cannot take risks." 
 
 Last year's Rock am Ring programme was curtailed by violent storms in which dozens of people were injured by lightning. 
 
 The country remains on high alert after a jihadist attack on a Christmas market in Berlin on December 19. 
 
 Anis Amri, a 24-year-old Tunisian, hijacked a truck, killed its Polish driver and ploughed the vehicle through the market, claiming 11 more lives and wounding dozens. ||||| A rock festival in Germany has been closed down for the day after police received information on a suspected terror threat. Thousands of people were evacuated from the Rock am Ring, at the Nürburgring in the north-west of the country on Friday. 
 
 Police said they were investigating after getting “concrete indications” that meant they could not “exclude a possible terrorist threat”. Festival organisers said they had been asked by police to shut down the festival “due to a terrorist threat”. 
 
 The incident comes less than a fortnight after a terrorist killed 22 people at a concert in Manchester. 
 
 It was not immediately clear how many fans were in attendance, but about 90,000 were expected by the end of the weekend at the annual three-day event. 
 
 The German band Rammstein were Friday night’s headliners, but had not started playing. The festival’s organisers said they hoped to be able to go ahead on Saturday. 
 
 “As safety is paramount, and it is necessary to exclude a threat to festival visitors in any case as far as possible, it was decided to suspend the festival for this day,” police said. 
 
 
 
 Police said they had changed their security plans in the light of the Manchester attack and had increased their forces to 1,200 officers. 
 
 “After a threat could not be ruled out, all necessary measures were taken immediately. This led to the event being interrupted today for security reasons.” 
 
 Rock am Ring’s organisers said: “We ask all the festival visitors to leave the site in a calm and controlled manner towards the exits and camping grounds. We have to support the police investigations.” ||||| Armed police block a road near to the Manchester Arena in central Manchester, England, Tuesday, May 23, 2017. An explosion struck an Ariana Grande concert in northern England late Monday, killing over... (Associated Press) 
 
 Armed police block a road near to the Manchester Arena in central Manchester, England, Tuesday, May 23, 2017. An explosion struck an Ariana Grande concert in northern England late Monday, killing over a dozen people and injuring dozens in what police say they are treating as a terrorist attack. (AP... (Associated Press) 
 
 MANCHESTER, England (AP) — An explosion struck an Ariana Grande concert attended by thousands of young music fans in northern England, killing at least 19 people and injuring dozens in what police said Tuesday was being treated as a terrorist attack. 
 
 Greater Manchester Police said 19 people were confirmed dead after the explosion at Manchester Arena. Northwest Ambulance Service said 59 injured people had been taken to hospitals, and a number of "walking wounded" were treated at the scene. 
 
 Police cars, bomb-disposal units and 60 ambulances raced to the scene as the scale of the carnage became clear. 
 
 "We are currently treating this as a terrorist incident until we know otherwise," said Ian Hopkins, chief constable of Greater Manchester Police. 
 
 There was panic after the explosion, which struck around 10:30 p.m. (2130GMT) Monday night as Grande was ending the concert, part of her Dangerous Woman Tour. 
 
 Grande, who was not injured, tweeted hours later: "Broken. From the bottom of my heart, I am so so sorry. I don't have words." 
 
 Manchester Arena said on its website that the blast struck outside the venue as concertgoers were leaving. Some eyewitnesses said it happened in the foyer of the arena just after the concert ended. 
 
 One witness said Grande had just finished her final song and said "Thank you, Manchester," before leaving the stage. 
 
 The incident led to a nightlong search for loved ones as parents tried to locate their teenage children and groups of friends scattered by the explosion sought to find one another. 
 
 Taxi services offered to give stranded concertgoers rides home for free, and residents opened their homes to provide lodging for people who could not get home because public transport had shut down. 
 
 City officials said the true spirit of Manchester would shine through despite the horrendous incident. 
 
 Twitter and Facebook were filled with appeals for information about people who had not been accounted for. 
 
 Jenny Brewster said she was leaving the concert with her 11-year-old daughter when the blast hit. 
 
 "As I turned around, boom, one loud noise," she told Sky News. "A gentleman said 'run!' so we ran." 
 
 Outside, she said, "you could smell the burning." 
 
 Britain's terrorist threat level stands at "severe," the second-highest rung on a five-point scale, meaning an attack is highly likely. 
 
 There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Online, supporters of the extremist Islamic State group, which holds territory in Iraq's Mosul and around its de facto capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa, celebrated the blast. 
 
 One wrote: "May they taste what the weak people in Mosul and (Raqqa) experience from their being bombed and burned," according to the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group. 
 
 If the incident is confirmed as a terrorist attack it would be the deadliest in Britain since four suicide bombers killed 52 London commuters on three subway trains and a bus in July 2005. 
 
 "A huge bomb-like bang went off that hugely panicked everyone and we were all trying to flee the arena," said concertgoer Majid Khan, 22. "It was one bang and essentially everyone from the other side of the arena where the bang was heard from suddenly came running towards us as they were trying to exit." 
 
 Added Oliver Jones, 17: "The bang echoed around the foyer of the arena and people started to run." 
 
 Video from inside the arena showed concertgoers screaming as they made their way out amid a sea of pink balloons. 
 
 British Prime Minister Theresa May said the government was working to establish "the full details of what is being treated by the police as an appalling terrorist attack." 
 
 May is due to chair a meeting of the government's COBRA emergency committee later Tuesday. She and other candidates suspended campaigning for Britain's June 8 election after the blast. 
 
 Police advised the public to avoid the area around the Manchester Arena, and the train station near the arena, Victoria Station, was evacuated and all trains canceled. 
 
 The Dangerous Woman tour is the third concert tour by 23-year-old Grande and supports her third studio album, "Dangerous Woman." 
 
 Grande's role as Cat Valentine on Nickelodeon's high school sitcom "Victorious" propelled her to teen idol status, starting in 2010. 
 
 The tour began in Phoenix, Arizona, in February. After Manchester, Grande was to perform at venues in Europe, including Belgium, Poland, Germany, Switzerland and France, with concerts in Latin America and Asia to follow. 
 
 Pop concerts and nightclubs have been a terrorism target before. Almost 90 people were killed by gunmen inspired by the extremist Islamic State group at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris during a performance by Eagles of Death Metal in November 2015. 
 
 In Turkey, 39 people died when a gunman attacked New Year's revelers at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul. 
 
 There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Online, supporters of Islamic State, which holds territory in Iraq's Mosul and around its de facto capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa, celebrated the incident. One wrote: "May they taste what the weak people in Mosul and (Raqqa) experience from their being bombed and burned," according to the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group. 
 
 Manchester, 160 miles (260 kilometers) northwest of London, was hit by a huge Irish Republican Army bomb in 1996 that leveled a swath of the city center. More than 200 people were injured, though no one was killed. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Katz and Lawless reported from London. AP writer Leanne Italie in New York and AP Music Writer Mesfin Fekadu in Jersey City, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
– A "possible terrorist threat" shut down Rock am Ring, one of Germany's biggest music festivals, Friday near Nuerburg, AFP reports. Police say they have "concrete elements, in the light of which a possible terrorist threat cannot be ruled out." But no other details were released. According to the Guardian, thousands of people were asked to leave the festival calmly "in order to help police investigations." It's unclear how many people were in attendance Friday, but about 90,000 were expected over the three-day festival. Organizers hoped the festival would resume Saturday. Rock am Ring had already increased security, adding 1,200 additional staff, after the recent Manchester bombing at an Ariana Grande concert. (Rock am Ring was also suspended last year after dozens were injured by lightning.)