New York City’s mayor said an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan Saturday night that injured 29 people was an “intentional act”.
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Investigators found a “possible secondary device” a few blocks away at 27th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, the New York Police Department (NYPD) tweeted late Saturday night.
David Martinez and Brenda Abero, who were among the injured and taken to New York’s Bellevue Hospital, both said they felt lucky to be alive. However, officials said early Sunday that a second device was found and safely removed by a bomb squad.
The explosion in Chelsea came hours after a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park, New Jersey shortly before a charity race.
“Tonight, New York City experienced a very bad incident”, de Blasio said at a news conference near the scene in on 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue in Chelsea.
Martinez, who suffered injuries to his head and leg, was feeling “pain, a little traumatized”, he said.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) announced on Twitter that its NY arson and explosives task force was also responding to the incident.
The object was a pressure cooker with dark colored wiring protruding, connected by silver duct tape to what appears to be a cellphone, officials said.
Pressure cookers packed with explosives and detonated with timing devices were used by two MA brothers in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 260.
Mr Anderson said police have no evidence to believe more than one person was involved in the attack.
“It was an extremely loud noise”. “It wasn’t like a collapse; it was like a boom like thunder, but like a hundred times louder than thunder”.
The United Nations General Assembly, which will be attended by dozens of world leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is set to open at the U.N.in New York City on Tuesday.
After landing in suburban New York City, Clinton told reporters she had been briefed “about the bombings in New York and New Jersey and the attacks in Minnesota”.
“I think it’s premature to call it terrorism until we know – unless you want to define terrorism as any violent act in an urban area – but given that there’s no proof of motivation, you wouldn’t be able to bring a terrorism case, so to speak, today”, she said.
Donald Trump appeared to pre-empt New York City officials when he declared Saturday evening that a “bomb went off” in New York City before officials had released details. He made the announcement minutes after stepping off his plane during a rally at an airport hangar in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The assailant, who was wearing a uniform that resembled that of a private security officer, stabbed people at multiple locations before an off-duty police officer shot and killed an him, Anderson said.
“I was driving a vehicle and next thing you know I felt an explosion”, Martinez said. She said, “we need to do everything we can to support our first responders – also to pray for the victims”. The device was taken to Rodman’s Neck facility in the Bronx where it can undergo a controlled explosion, if need be.
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“We’ve got to get very tough”, Trump said. No injuries were reported in that blast, from a device planted in a plastic trash can along the route of a charity foot race.
