New Jersey Transit trains resumed service along the Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast Line, but there are delays. Elizabeth Mayor Christian Bollwage said the device exploded shortly after 12:30 a.m. Monday. “The drone indicated it could be suspicious and it could be a live bomb”, Bollwage said.
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The mayor said he learned about 3:30 p.m. Sunday that authorities investigating Saturday’s bombing in the Chelsea section of New York City had found a connection to Elizabeth.
Anyone should report any suspicious packages, or any suspicious activity, at their local station by calling their local police station or 911.
Up to five devices were found in the bag and when the robot cut a wire on one of them to try and disable it, it exploded. “The other devices, I don’t know what the Federal Bureau of Investigation and State Police are doing at this moment, but they are trying to remove them in a secure way to they can preserve them for evidence”.
According to NBC News’ Miguel Almaguer, Bollwage said Sunday’s device “could have hurt” a lot of people if it had gone off.
Earlier Saturday, a pipe bomb blew up in Seaside Park, New Jersey, before a charity race to benefit Marines.
“If you look at a number of these incidents, you can call them whatever you want: they are terrorism though”, New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie, a member of the Trump campaign, told CNN. New Jersey-bound Amtrak trains were being held at New York Penn Station, officials said, while New York-bound Amtrak trains were being held in Trenton.
After finding that the backpack contained “wires and a pipe”, the mayor said, the men dropped the item in the street and contacted the Elizabeth Police Department around 8:45 p.m.
Earlier, footage was released of the moment the device disappeared in a fireball, as Federal Bureau of Investigation bomb squad robots moved in. It wasn’t immediately known if the blast was part of a controlled explosion.
Authorities found five separate devices inside the backpack.
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The discovery of the suspicious package came a day after the explosion in Manhattan and an unexploded pressure-cooker device was found four blocks away in New York City.
