Police in the eastern German city of Halle on Sunday announced that they had arrested and charged a 36-year-old man with illegal use of explosives after discovering what appeared to be a detonation-ready explosive device during a search of his apartment.

On Saturday, shortly before noon, police were called to the man's residence when neighbors reported that he was yelling racist threats at passers-by from his window while waving a gun around, as well as having threatened to bomb foreign-looking neighbors.

When police arrived they concluded that the drunken man's gun was in fact a toy. However, they noticed several suspicious items in his apartment and immediately called in a bomb squad and explosives-sniffing dogs.

Some 50 apartments were evacuated for the duration of the search.

Experts continue to assess the threat potential posed by the device. The case has been turned over to the Saxony-Anhalt State Criminal Office (LKA) for further investigation.

In 2019, Halle was the site of a deadly racist attack in which a white supremacist killed two people after failing to gain entry into a synagogue, where he said he had planned to kill as many Jews as possible with a gun and explosives.

Edited by: Kieran Burke

Material from dpa contributed to this article.