Flights to and from Geneva Airport were disrupted this evening after a fire broke out at a reception centre for asylum seekers on site.
Images appeared to show evidence of a blast at Switzerland’s second-busiest airport, where black smoke could be seen spewing into the sky from the site.
Airport spokesman Ignace Jeannerat in the evening said the blaze was ‘under control’, but staff needed to ‘secure the area and remove the debris’.
The fire was ‘outside the airport perimeter’ and ‘creating a lot of smoke’, he said.
Some inbound flights were diverted to Lyon and Basel.
Geneva is Switzerland’s second-busiest airport after Zurich. Wedged in on the edge of Swiss territory, the runway is next to the border with France.
In 2021, the airport welcomed more than 5.9 million passengers, down from the pre-pandemic level of nearly 18 million in 2019.
Daily Mail, UK.
