A French nuclear power plant was evacuated Thursday after a bomb alert sparked by an anonymous telephone call, regional officials said.

Police inspected all high-security parts of the plant in cental-western Chinon but found nothing unusual, the local prefecture said. A full search of the site was still ongoing late Thursday morning.

All but the most essential staff, or 198 people, were evacuated after plant security officials received an anonymous phone call at 6:00 am (0400 GMT).

"The caller simply said 'bomb deposited'. We applied the standard procedure," said Nicolas Chantrenne, head of the prefect's office.

"Only those in charge of vital operations at the plant remained inside the plant," he said.

"The vital parts of the site have been inspected, with no result. A team with sniffer dogs and bomb disposal experts are to complete an inspection of the whole site, which will take all morning."

Chantrenne said such alerts were "relatively rare" across France's 59 nuclear power plants.

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