The explosion on West 23rd Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in the neighbourhood of Chelsea was reported at around 9pm, NBC News reported.
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The Republican presidential nominee made the comments around 9:10 p.m., shortly after the explosion in Manhattan’s crowded Chelsea neighborhood and as emergency officials were responding to the blast.
West 23, which stretches through the center of the fashionable Chelsea district in Manhattan is one of New York’s busiest and most popular areas and home to the world-famous “Hotel Chelsea”, once popular with artists and musicians including Andy Warhol and is also an area home to the city’s LGBT community.
“I must tell you that just before I got off the plane a bomb went off in NY and nobody knows what’s going on”, Trump said, minutes after stepping off his plane during a rally at an airport hangar in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Police and firefighters believed the artifact, of which no details have been given out, had been inside a dumpster.
President Barack Obama, who was attending a congressional dinner in Washington, “has been apprised of the explosion in New York City, the cause of which remains under investigation”, a White House official said.
James O’Neill, New York Police Department commissioner, said “the area is being treated like a crime scene”. According to Sputnik International, the blast is now under investigation and the authorities are also considering the possibility that construction explosives may have accidentally caused the incident.
Significantly, the only public figure to use the word “bomb” in connection with the dumpster explosion was Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who told reporters as he alighted from an aircraft in Colorado that “a bomb went off” in NY, which proved “we better get very tough, folks”. He says one person’s injuries were serious and the rest were minor.
Earlier in the day a pipe bomb exploded in New Jersey near the scene of a run in support of U.S. marines.
Police officers and federal agents were scouring the streets with flashlights, robots and dogs early Sunday to ensure there were no other devices in the area.
“Intentional” New York blast injures 29 people was posted in World of TheNews International – https://www.thenews.com.pk on September 18, 2016 and was last updated on September 18, 2016.
Speaking at a press conference, Mayor Bill de Blasio described the explosion as “intentional” and said “injuries are significant but none of the injured are likely to die”.
The NYPD Special Operations Division says a possible secondary device has been located. “Everybody ran out of the restaurant into the street”.
Hundreds of people were seen fleeing down the block as police rushed to cordon off the area.
Some social media users said the sound of the explosion was heard as far away as Hoboken, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from Chelsea.
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The man told NY1 he lives in the neighborhood and knows it well.
