Tenerife police foil planned mass suicide

Police on the Spanish island of Tenerife have foiled a mass suicide attempt by members of a religious sect.

A German psychologist, 57 year old Heide Fitthau-Garthe, has been arrested and is being held at Tenerife police station on charges of organising an alleged mass suicide attempt.

The group of 31 included four children and were mostly British and German.

They apparantly believed the world was going to end at 19.00 GMT, and they planned to kill themselves on the Tiede volcano where they thought a space ship would pick them up.

Antonio Lopez-Ojeda, a Spanish Interior Ministry representative on Tenerife, said the sect could be a minority group of the Order of the Solar Temple.

The cult has been responsible for a number of mass suicides in Canada, France and Switzerland.