Schools across Italy have received bomb threats for the second day in a row, sparking fresh panic and evacuations.

Some 1,800 schools, from Milan in the north to Sicily in the south, reported receiving a similar threat to one that created chaos in Italy on Wednesday - even though no devices have been found anywhere.

The Italian government has advised schools that "in the absence of concrete evidence beyond the simple receipt of a mass email indicating a danger, buildings must not not be evacuated".

Schools in Scotland and Northern Ireland received threats on Wednesday, too. It is unclear whether the incidents are connected.

On Thursday morning, a bomb alert at a Calais rail station delayed international and national train services in northern France.

The latest incidents follow a series of bomb hoaxes last week against airports and airlines in a number of European countries.

Although a number of threats were claimed by an extremist misogynistic group, it later denied any link to the false warnings.

Wednesday's email threat - sent to 6,300 out of a total of 7,476 Italian state schools - was said to be from a certain "Mikhail Andropov, leader of Vilayat di Misoginistan".

Some officials say it originated in Taiwan.

A similar message sent to Italian schools on Thursday, again signed by Mikhail Andropov, is said to have been sent from the account of a teacher in the Philippines whose account is believed to have been hacked.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has spoken of "a strategy intended to cause alarm and concern".