At least 29 people were injured in an explosion late on September 17 in a crowded district of New York City, BBC reported.
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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and other city officials said investigators had ruled out a gas leak as the cause of the blast, but they stopped short of calling it a bombing and declined to specify precisely what they believed may have triggered the explosion.
Late Saturday night, police moved to a second scene a few blocks away, where a possible pressure cooker was found.
The blast occurred in Chelsea at around 8:30 pm on West 23rd Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues at a typically bustling time of the weekend in an area packed with bars, restaurants and luxury apartment blocks.
Of the 29 people wounded in the incident, 24 have been taken to hospitals with various degrees of scrapes and abrasions from glass and metal, said Fire Department commissioner Daniel Nigro. Most of the injuries were minor. The cause of the blast in Chelsea district in Manhattan remains unclear.
Regardless, de Blasio vowed that NY “will not be intimidated” in the face of a potential threat.
Several were reported injured in a bomb blast in in New York’s Chelsea neighbourhood.
We also want to be upfront and say there is no evidence at this point of a terror connection to this incident. Officials said around 3 a.m. Sunday that the second device is no longer a threat.
Mayor Bill de Blasio called the explosion an “intentional” act.
The law enforcement official also said the explosion appears to have come from a construction toolbox in front of a building.
People look on as the police, fire department and other first responders work near an alleged explosion on West 23rd Street on September 17, 2016, in NY.
Police patrol near the site of a “pipe bomb-style device” explosion along a running race route in New Jersey.
City authorities initially said 25 people had been injured by later updated that to 29 victims, one of whom was serious. The blast was reported shortly before 9pm EST (2am BST) on West 23rd Street, the New York Fire Department (NYFD) confirmed.
Chelsea, the neighborhood of the explosion, is primarily a diverse residential area on the west side of Manhattan.
A U.S. official said the Joint Terrorism Task Force, an inter-agency group of federal, state and local officials, was responding to the blast.
It’s a awful thing that’s going on in our world and in our country and we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant.
“We have in this city the most advanced anti-terror capacity of any city in this country and obviously the largest police force of any city in the country all ready to ensure our safety”, De Blasio told reporters.
In light of the explosion, police officers closed off the access to 23 street and 6 avenue, where the explosion occurred.
Based on what is now known, there was also no connection to the incident earlier Saturday in Seaside Heights, N.J., where a pipe bomb exploded near a Marine charity run, de Blasio said.
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“We have to let this investigation unfold”, Clinton added.
