German police lifted an alert of an imminent attack in Munich, hours after two key train stations were evacuated.

One resident, Oliver Habel, said that he had spent New Year’s Eve in a restaurant in the southern part of the city, and that he learned about the terrorism scare only Friday morning.

“Five to seven” suspects were believed to be planning to carry out a “suicide attack” as festivities were under way to welcome in the New Year, Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae said.

Riot police armed with machine guns patrol the street in front of Pasing railway station.

The suspended train services returned to normal in the early hours of Friday, but the heavy police presence remained across the city. He said that the police was still examining those hints of alleged suspects, and it was still not known whether there were so-called five to seven suspects from Syria and Iraq. “If we knew this, we would be a clear step further”, he added. “We’re working hard right now to try to establish the whereabouts of these people named and whether they are in Germany or Europe”.

Police officers guard the main entrance in front of Munich main station.

Some 550 police officers were deployed to hunt down the suspects and secure the city, with authorities warning that the threat remains “high”.

German media have reported that authorities received the tipoff from a friendly intelligence service, possibly France.

“The information about an imminent terror attack at midnight was very concrete“, police spokeswoman Elisabeth Matzinger told The Associated Press.

Throughout the Munich alert, police kept up a stream of messages in several languages on Twitter, at times alternating incongruously between security warnings and New Year greetings.

The top security official in Germany’s Bavaria region says there are no longer any “concrete indications” of a terror threat at any specific location.

De Maiziere promised that in the future, German security officials would continue to analyse the situation thoroughly and act accordingly.

The spokesperson for the police said that after evaluating the situation, authorities started evacuating the train stations and also asked partygoers to stay away from big crowds outside.

Shortly after the Paris attacks, German police cancelled a friendly football game between Germany and the Netherlands in Hanover because of fears of a planned bomb attack.

According to the reports, all three had claimed that a team of Isis-affiliated terrorists was planning to attack the Munich stations using the same tactics as in Paris, when men opened fire on crowds with Kalashnikovs before detonating explosive suicide belts.

The whole of Europe has been on edge following the November 13 Paris terror attacks that killed 130 people and injured many more.

The warning in the Bavarian capital was issued just before 10.45 pm local time. The Bavarian capital is home to the Oktoberfest, visited by 6 million people every year, and the annual Munich security conference, attended by the foreign ministers of all the major global powers.