Tenerife police foil planned mass suicide

The authorities on the Spanish island of Tenerife off the north coast of Africa say they have foiled an attempt by members of a religious sect to commit mass suicide.

Officials said police arrested a German psychologist Heide Fittkau-Garthejust hours before she planned to lead her followers in a mass suicide on top of the Teide volcano because the cult believed the world would end today Thursday.

They told police a space ship would have come to carry away their bodies for re-birth in a new world.

Spanish television said most of the thirty-two cult members were from the German city of Hamburg.

They included five young children.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service