Schools were evacuated across Italy on Wednesday following a series of hoax bomb threats, but Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said there was no "concrete danger".

Similar hoax threats were reported in schools in Britain and Ireland, which reportedly prompted some evacuations in Scotland.

Meloni said she had called a government meeting with security and intelligence chiefs for Wednesday to discuss the threats.

Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara said 312 schools had received the threats but urged people not to panic, according to Italian media.

Crowds of evacuated schoolchildren could be seen outside their schools in different parts of the country.

Some said they had to evacuated quickly and left belongings inside that they could not recover before police checks.

"The principal came out into the courtyard and told us that an email had come in, a bomb threat, and right after that the building was evacuated," Sofia De Ponte, a 19-year-old student at Rome's Virgilio high school, said.

De Ponte said the police had still not arrived because "there's a long waiting list with all the schools".

"We're still here waiting," said her fellow pupil Elena Sicignano, 19.

Violetta Uboldi, an art teacher at Brera school in Milan, said children appeared happy at being evacuated.

"I think there was a cry of joy because school was over. That was the reaction," she said.

But Angelica, 16, a student at the school, said she was told by a teacher that it was not a drill "so we panicked a bit".

Italian media reports said the bomb threat was in an email purportedly from a "Mikhail Andropov, leader of the Vilayat of Misoginistan".

"I have just left in your building, inside a plastic bag, a powerful explosive with remote detonation," the email said.

The government sought to play down the incident.

"At present, based on the checks carried out, no element has emerged that would suggest there is a concrete danger," Meloni said in a Facebook post.

"The reports instead appear to be linked to a strategy aimed at generating alarm and concern, which is currently the subject of all the necessary in-depth investigations," Meloni said. (AFP)


Edited by Aaron Tam